ISLAMABAD, June 25: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto has condemned the regime for what she said continued victimization and brutalization of PPP workers to avenge the party’s refusal to accept its anti-people policy. In a statement issued here on Saturday, the former prime minister said the latest incident of torturing opponents occurred on Thursday last when Peer Mukarram, the jailed husband of PPP MPA Farzana Raja, was thrown out of hospital in Islamabad and taken to the Adiala Jail.

Peer Mukarram suffering from multiple diseases had been admitted to the hospital on doctors’ advice. Following the opposition’s criticism of the Punjab chief minister during the budget debate by the PPP members, Peer Mukarram was made to pay the price, she said. “MPA Farzana Raja has been one of the more vocal opponents of the Punjab chief minister. She has alleged that the chief minister was taking personal interest in the victimization of Peer Mukarram. Provincial law minister Raja Basharat threatened her on the floor of the house of making an example out of her for making allegations of corruption,” said the statement.

Ms Bhutto also condemned the “brutalization of MPs Zahid Bhurguri, Nafeesa Raja, Humera Alwani and the arrest of Syed Yusuf Raza Gillani, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, Bismillah Kakar and others on political grounds.”

She said the manner in which Peer Mukarram was thrown out of hospital was a violation of his fundamental human rights as well as of international and local laws. She said by trampling on fundamental human rights the regime was demeaning itself and showing how intolerant, immoderate and unenlightened it was.

She said the country needed a democratic government which treated the citizens with respect. Ms Bhutto said history was replete with examples of tyrants who fell from power. She called upon the people to unite in ending military dictatorship and restoring democracy and peoples’ power.