ISLAMABAD: The opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is busy making preparations for its forthcoming traditional public meeting at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on the occasion of the death anniversary of the party’s founding chairman, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, on April 4.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari and his son PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will address the public meeting in which the two leaders are expected to give the party’s strategy for the future.

In the last such gathering held at the same venue on the occasion of death anniversary of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto in December, Mr Zardari had announced that he and his son would soon contest by-elections and become members of parliament in order to boost the opposition forces. However, since then there has been silence from the party over the issue.

It will be the 38th death anniversary of the PPP’s founding chairman and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in the Central Jail, Rawalpindi, on April 4, 1979 during the military rule of Gen Ziaul Haq, who had imposed martial law in the country in July 1977 in the wake of a political crisis that had been triggered by the opposition’s allegations of massive rigging in the general elections.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah has written a letter to the management of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), asking it to make arrangements for operating special flights to facilitate the party workers and leaders across the country who want to attend the April 4 gathering in Larkana. Through the letter, Mr Shah has suggested that the PIA should operate special flights from Islamabad to Sukkur via Lahore and from Karachi to Sukkur in the morning of April 4 and return flights in the evening of April 5.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2017