LARKANA: While former president Asif Ali Zardari linked Talibanisation to poverty and urged the government to work for economic stability, the PPP’s patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari vowed to wage ‘jihad’ against terrorists if they did not lay down arms.

Bilawal, who was addressing a large gathering held at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto on the sixth death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, announced that his sisters Bakhtawar and Assefa would join active politics.

If the Taliban do not lay down arms and accept the constitution, “we will wage jihad against them”, he said.

He said terrorists were his enemies and ‘animals’ fed by a “lion” — a reference to the election symbol of the ruling PML-N – who, according to him, was trying to become another Z.A. Bhutto.

He said that if the ‘lion’ proved that it had changed and stopped giving shelter to terrorists in Punjab, he would support the prime minister; otherwise he would raise the slogan of ‘Jo dahshatgardon ka yar hai, ghaddar hai, ghaddar hai’ (friends of terrorists are traitors).

“We will not talk to them if they refuse to lay down their arms and accept the country’s constitution,” he said, adding that the Taliban had assassinated his mother and attacked the army and Malala Yousufzai in the name of Islam. But they are neither Muslim nor human beings.

He said the entire world was facing the problem of terrorism and it would take time to eradicate the menace.

Bilawal Bhutto said terrorism was not the product of drone strikes.

He praised his father Asif Zardari for saving the country by raising the slogan of “Pakistan khapey” at a time when it was on the verge of disintegration and accomplishing what the establishment deemed to be impossible.

In the general elections this year, he said, the leaders of the PPP, ANP and MQM had been denied the facility of contacting the people, while the others were supported by the Taliban.

He said the elections had been rigged but “we accepted them for the supremacy of democracy because we follow constructive, not destructive, politics”.

He said the Punjabi establishment was united against the PPP and some elements had silenced and tied the hands of a political president. “We know them all. We contained Imran Khan’s tsunami on Punjab’s border.”

He assured Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that the PPP would neither derail democracy nor allow it to be derailed.

The ‘jiyalas’ of the PPP complained against ministers in the previous government because they had not received the care and love which they had been getting from Benazir Bhutto. He said that although some party workers were bitter, it was impossible for an admirer of Bhutto to ditch BB’s son. It is time to forget the complaints.

He said the PPP worked for progress and development and “we can lay down our lives for the country”.

Bilawal said that in addition to the execution of his grandfather Z.A. Bhutto and shedding the blood of his mother Benazir at the Liaquat Bagh, his real asset were the people of the country.

Pointing towards the crowd he said: “It is now your turn to take care of me as you had cared for Benazir Bhutto.” Those who were brought up by dictatorship and political orphans are doing the politics of self-interest, but “we offered our blood”. “I saw Benazir Bhutto receiving the bodies of her brothers. I witnessed my mother taking her children to meet Zardari in jail.”

He said the friends of terrorists were traitors, while “our destination is martyrdom”.

“This is Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan not of the jungle animals,” he said.

He said the PPP remained undeterred and before 2018, the year of the next elections, “I shall reorganise the party where performance and ideology would be the key to success”.

He said the rulers had been making tall claims of breaking the begging bowl but now they had enlarged the bowl.

IRAN PIPELINE: Former president Zardari said Prime Minister Sharif alone could neither complete the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline nor implement the agreements signed with Turkey.

He said all problems could not be solved in five years.

“They (present government) will resolve some issues and some will be resolved by our next government.”

He urged politicians to stand united against a “mindset” in these testing times. “We have to fight against that mindset and will stand by the government on this front.”

He said: “We will expose the government’s policy of privatisation and criticise its other weaknesses in and outside parliament because we are fully aware of their shortfalls. They should be under the mistaken impression that no-one is watching them.”

He said it was not an ordinary thing to disgrace and handcuff a prime minister, but the arrest of Mr Sharif after the 1999 coup appeared to be a drama.

“We accepted the results of the last election because over the past 65 years political forces were made to fight each other.”

He said a “cat” had been drinking the milk and had now been captured and should not be released. “We have to fight against those who weakened the country,” he said.

ACCIDENT: A man, Ayoub Abro of Jani Bund, died in a stampede after a portion of a wall at the venue of the meeting collapsed when people hurried to scale it at the end of the event.