July 11, 2008	Friday	Rajab 7, 1429

KARACHI, July 10: Criticising the government’s decision to withdraw the death sentence, renowned social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi on Thursday said that the murderers of humanity should be awarded death.

Talking to PPI at a stall set up at the Mazar-i-Quaid to get charity from the masses in connection with his “Bheek mission” to provide food to the people, he said that although he was not a politician, he was in favour of a violent revolution through which the cruel elements could be dealt with strongly.

The social worker said that he was struggling for the provision of food to the poor and planned to collect Rs1 billion this year.

Mr Edhi strongly criticised the present government of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He said that had the assassinated PPP leaders Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto been alive, they would have torn the papers of the recently announced budget, which in no manner was a budget for the poor.

He said that the present government had still not fulfilled the hopes of the deprived people. Regarding the collection of Bheek funds, he said that a generous woman had donated Rs4.5 million and another gave $10,000 and he hoped that on Thursday only he would collect Rs10 million.

He said that he started the mission on June 19, 2008 from Quetta and visited Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujrat, Lahore, Sukkur and other small and big cities of the country. He said that people of Pakistan had accorded him a warm welcome and supported his mission.

Mr Edhi said that as many as 325 centers had been established to provide free food thrice a day to the poor people at a cost of Rs1 billion a year.

He said that although the people of many western and Arab countries including the United States and the UK etc had offered him to pay charity but he only accepted funds from the people of Pakistan as it was one of the most generous of all the nations.—PPI