LAHORE: The PPP adopted four resolutions on Monday at its Foundation Day function.

A large number of PPP workers and central leaders gathered at Bhatta Chowk to observe the 48th Foundation Day of the party.

In the first resolution presented by PPP Lahore Information Secretary Faisal Mir, the party demanded an apology from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for implicating PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari in false cases.

The resolution said former president Asif Ali Zardari had been acquitted of the SGS-Cotecna scam.

“Mr Zardari faced trial for 18 years. He also faced the worst form of physical torture while he was behind bars during the Sharif’s regime. The family members of Mr Zardari and the PPP workers had also suffered physical and mental agony during the previous tenures of Nawaz Sharif. This gathering of PPP workers and leaders therefore demands Nawaz Sharif apologise to Mr Zardari, his family members and the PPP workers”, reads the resolution.

The other resolution said after returning from exile, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had categorically declared that retired Gen Pervez Musharraf would be held responsible if she was assassinated.

“The PPP feels that conspiracies are being hatched even today to save Gen Musharraf from the murder trial. This gathering demands the federal government and the country’s superior judiciary play their due role to counter such conspiracies to ensure a fair trial of the case. No favour should be extended to Musharraf for being a former army chief”, it said.

In the third resolution, the PPP demanded that not only the Pakistani judiciary but the legal fraternity worldwide had conceded that Shaheed Zulfikar Bhutto was innocent and Gen Ziaul Haq had implicated him in a murder case which eventually led to his execution in April 1979. The reference filed by the PPP in the Supreme Court of Pakistan under Article 186 of the Constitution, challenging the conviction and sentence of its founding father and ex-prime minister remained pending for several years now. “This house demands the chief justice orders a retrial of the murder case in which Bhutto was hanged. This will also help remove the black scar from the face of the Pakistani judiciary”.

In the fourth resolution the PPP demanded an apology from those leaders for ‘siding with the Taliban and other terrorists’ which had resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent citizen and Pakistani soldiers.

PPP Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo said since there was no danger to the political system, the PPP would play the role of an “effective opposition”, requesting Chairman Bilawal Bhutto to come to Lahore for a longer stay. He said the PPP would not accept ‘minus-one formula’, a reference to Asif Ali Zardari.

He said the PPP was the name of an ideology for the empowerment of people of Pakistan because they were the source of power which was the one of the basic principles of the party. He said Bhutto granted the people the right of vote that brought out the politics from the drawing rooms of the elite to at the door steps of the masses. He demanded that the Judicial Commission report into the Model Town incident be made public in which Punjab police killed 14 supporters of Dr Tahirul Qadri.

He congratulated Ashraf Bhatti and the Lahore PPP for making arrangements on the Foundation Day function.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan questioned the LNG deal. He said the prime minister had become a rich man by evading taxes.

Former governor Sardar Latif Khosa, Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, Samina Khalid Gurkhi, Navid Chaudhry, Altaf Qureshi, Aurungzeb Burki, Jehan Ara Wattoo, Faisal Mir, Barrister Amir Hassan and Shahida Jabeen also spoke.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2015