LARKANA: Pakistan Peo­ples Party-Shaheed Bhu­tto (PPP-SB) chairperson Ghin­wa Bhutto on Friday complained that her family and party had been kept deprived of justice for 23 years as culprits of Mir Mur­taza Bhutto’s [her husband] murder and that of his companions evaded punishment.

She was speaking at a programme held in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto on Friday to observe the 23rd death anniversary of Mir Murtaza Bhutto.

She said her husband was assassinated under a well thought-out conspiracy. She said she, her family and followers of Mir Murtaza had been waiting for justice for 23 years.

Hundreds attend 23rd death anniversary programme in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto

“Instead of taking the killers and their accomplices to task, they were rewarded with ministries and high posts while the policemen involved in the action leading to the tragic deaths got promotions,” she deplored.

Addressing the successive rulers of the country, she said “the family of Bhutto martyrs was denied justice; one after another, four Bhuttos were martyred ... such kind of treatment [denial of justice] may not frustrate us. ...” She annou­nced continuation of protests by her party across the country for the whole next year to demand justice. “We will not sit idle,” she declared.

She posed a question that “does anyone get justice here?”

She noted that Mir Murtaza, who was a member of the Sindh Assembly, was assassinated in the days when his sister was ruling over the country.

Regarding the 72 years of resistance offered by Kashmiris against Indian oppres­sion, she said they were still fighting as that UN resolution about Kashmir was yet to be implemented.

With a clear reference to executed prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Ms Ghinwa said perhaps there was no leader of his stature present in Pakistan who could dare to tear up the papers in the UN and boycott its session.

She asked India to come to its senses and halt the atrocities in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The PPP-SB chairperson criticised Prime Minister Imran Khan for “making peoples’ lives miserable”. She called the prime minister “inept and inefficient”, and predicted that soon people would take to the streets to oust him. She clarified that “criticising the ruling coalition does not mean we are standing with the opposition” and, in the same breath, added: “those who have plundered the national exchequer and are demanding air-conditioners in their jail barracks should not be let off through plea bargain”.

Turning to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Ghinwa Bhutto recalled that speaking at a gathering here last year, she had advised him to come out from the orbit of politics that his father had been doing. “But Jamil Soomro, then an employee of Bilawal House, issued a statement not only criticising me but also passing derogatory remarks against [her daughter] Fatima Bhutto. Now you [Bilawal] have thrown a bone before him [Jamil Soomro] in the shape of party ticket for PS-11 Larkana. This is the reward you have given him for the kind of insult he had committed.”

Taj Mohammed Domki, Chaudhry Munir Hussain, Arbab Khatoon, Feroza Shah, Saleem Shah and other PPP-SB leaders also spoke.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2019