HYDERABAD: PPP-Parliamentarians president Asif Ali Zardari’s address at a public meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday will be his first ever in his political career ie since he became the party chairman, then co-chairman and then PPP-P president.

However, the former president of the country has made plenty of earlier visits to Sindh’s second city. It was in March 2013, when Mr Zardari had laid the foundation stone of the M9 (Karachi-Hyderabad) Motorway in Hyderabad Club.

Saturday’s public meeting is being held at the residence of a party MPA Jam Khan Shoro, in Karan Khan Shoro village, Qasimabad.

Mr Zardari would attend a dinner, to be hosted by MPA Shoro at his house. He would have an overnight stay, reportedly at Rawal House, the residence of an interned party leader, off Mirpurkhas Road.

Earlier in 2002, while imprisoned in Karachi jail, Mr Zardari was produced in the court of a judicial magistrate in the city in connection with an identification parade in a double murder case.

The case pertained to the murder of Alam Baloch, a former federal secretary, and his gunman, Ramzan. Mr Zardari, his father Hakim Ali Zardari, and others were nominated in the case registered against them at the Qasimabad police station on Sept 18, 1997. He was later acquitted in the case.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2018