HYDERABAD: The All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) has announced that the party head retired Gen Pervez Musharraf will end his self-imposed exile and return to the country before general election to lead a 23-party electoral alliance, Pakistan Awami Ittehad in polls.

APML president Dr Mohammad Amjad said at a tea party at local press club on Sunday that if Musharraf was allowed to work without restraints, all top politicians would accept him as their leader.

He said that APML was in contact with many parties, including PML-F, Pakistan Sunni Tehreek, Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen, Ahle Hadis and others. “We are taking leaders of these parties to Dubai to have them meet Musharraf,” he said, adding that APML sought justice for its leader.

He urged Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) to get united in order to serve people in an adequate manner.

Dr Amjad said that if MQM-P had complaints that its workers were picked up over the information given by PSP and if PSP thought its activists were detained as a result of tit for tat action by MQM-P, both the parties should give up vengeful policy.

He urged law enforcement agencies to make proper investigation before picking up activists of either party and said MQM-P and PSP had no role in extrajudicial killings of youths in Karachi because it was PPP which ruled the province.

He accused PPP and PML-N of being involved in extrajudicial killings and said there were some people who believed if someone refused to accept ideology of a particular party, he should be eliminated.

He said that PSP used agencies’ name to threaten people and make them believe whoever joined the party would be dry-cleaned of all allegations. It was unfair that PSP leader Anis Qaimkhani was issuing threats to former PSP activists who had recently joined APML, he said.

Dr Amjad said that Musharraf’s sympathies were with Mohajir community but he wanted to be leader of all ethnicities and not one particular community.

Karachi, he said, received about Rs750 billion during Musharraf government for restoring peace, bringing prosperity and improving infrastructure etc. But now the metropolis had turned into one large garbage heap plagued by civic issues and Hyderabad was different from it only in magnitude of problems, he said.

He said that in past, 10-20 per cent of the total development budget was pocketed by unscrupulous elements but it appeared that nowadays 100 per cent of the development budget was going into their deep pockets.

He advised people to ask rulers what they had done for them and for the children dying in Thar because of malnutrition. He was not begging people for votes for his party but if their elected representatives had failed to deliver, they must rethink their decision and not cast vote for the same people in future, he said.

About former Malir SSP Rao Anwar, Dr Amjad said that everybody knew whose man Rao was.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2018