MUZAFFARABAD: Activists of the PPP and its affiliates staged rallies and demonstrations in different parts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday to condemn the sacking of their party’s elected government on July 5, 1977, terming it the ‘blackest day’ in the chequered democratic history of Pakistan.

In Muzaffarabad, they assembled at the bustling Burhan Wani Chowk outside the press club, holding a big banner inscribed with a detailed text about the event.

“On black day against dismissal of the democratically government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto through imposition of martial law on July 5, 1977, we express our resolve to continue our everlasting struggle for protection of Constitution and democracy by rising above our political and peripheral differences,” the banner, decorated with portraits of the PPP founder and sitting chairperson on either side, read.

Led by senior PPP leader Shaukat Javed Mir, the activists, who were wearing black armbands, also chanted slogans glorifying their leaders and democracy and denounced dictatorships and other undemocratic means ‘detrimental to the very basis of the country’.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Mir recalled the “attachment and commitment” of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with Kashmir and Kashmiris and claimed that “the great visionary democratic leader had been eliminated under an international conspiracy because he had succeeded in uniting Islamic countries which would eventually lead to freedom of Kashmir from Indian slavery”.

He maintained that Bhutto had made Pakistan’s defence impregnable by laying the basis of its nuclear programme, apart from giving awareness to the common man about his rights and responsibilities and giving a unanimous Constitution to the nation.

However, he lamented that in spite of all these services he was removed and hanged by a dictator in a deadly night attack on democracy.

“If Shaheed Bhutto’s government had not been dissolved, not only that Pakistan would not be facing the economic, fiscal, political crises and international isolation, India would also not dare unleash state-sponsored terrorism and commit mass-slaughter in occupied Kashmir,” he said.

“Pakistan is still reeling from the implications of the July 5 coup that gifted the country gun and drug culture on the one hand and terrorism on the other,” he added.

However, the PPP leader maintained that while July 1977 had brought devastating news for the PPP, he was hopeful that July 2018 will turn out to be an auspicious month for the party “with its landslide victory in the upcoming polls and subsequent installation of Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari as the next prime minister of Pakistan”.

Mr Mir also condemned a recent attack on the PPP chairperson’s election rally in Lyari, terming it a failed attempt to postpone elections.

“The history of the Bhutto family is full of sacrifices for the security and prosperity of Pakistan and they cannot be cowed down with such dastardly tactics,” he said.

He also called upon Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar to make an example of the “traitors who had abrogated the Constitution and sent the elected governments packing”.

Prominent speakers on the occasion were Majid Hussain Awan, Azhar Shaikh, Shahnawaz Farooqi and Mir Umar Mushtaq.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2018