February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

THATTA, Feb 14: The Shirazi group, affiliated to Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, gathered thousands of people in Sports Complex on Thursday, as a show of strength and response to Pakistan People’s Party’s first public meeting after Benazir’s murder, addressed by Asif Ali Zardari at the same venue.

Caretaker provincial minister and Shirazi’s elder Syed Aijaz Ali Shah Shirazi who, in violation of election commission rules, has been campaigning for his sons and nephews in the district, said in his address that like the entire Sindh his group had been equally shocked by the brutal assassination of PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Shirazi said that his group also mourned the demise of Benazir by organising Ghaibana Nimaz-i-Janaza and condolence meetings. But a group of local Pakistan People’s Party leaders, who had been rejected in past due to their misdeeds were trying to exploit the situation, he said.

The minister claimed that his Shirazis had vehemently opposed the bifurcation of Thatta district and creation of a new district Bhambhore. If the new district had come into being the interests of local population would have been usurped by an ethnic group, he said.

Former minister of state and a candidate for PS-87 Mohammad Ali Malkani claimed that he raised voice against controversial water projects including Kalabagh Dam in National Assembly and honestly invested his time and energy in serving Sindh and Sindhis.

Earlier, the participants offered fateha for the departed soul of the slain leader Benazir Bhutto.