LAHORE: President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto today [Dec 22] deprecated the tendency on the act of certain politicians to encourage agitational politics and urged them to follow the democratic path. Talking to newsmen at the Lahore airport, President Bhutto said the politicians must realise that the old order had changed now. Democracy had taken the place of dictatorship. There must be an end to the violence on the street. “You have a democratic constitution. You have a democratic establishment. We have democratic institutions. There is freedom of Press, freedom of speech. Exercise it,” he emphasised.

President Bhutto appealed to the politicians: “Please consider what you say. And please consider what you do. Do you want it to be a one-way traffic always?”

The President remarked that he was not afraid of consequences. “One must rather die with a pool of blood than in bed with sheets all over the place. We are not afraid of death. If you want the politics of death, we are prepared for it. But if you want the politics of democracy we welcome it.” President Bhutto reiterated ... that Bangladesh would not be recognised against the wishes of the people. — News agencies

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2022