KARACHI, Feb 13: The Pakistan People’s Party has condemned the alleged attack on MPA Rafique Engineer, General Secretary of the party’s Karachi chapter, and described it as “an act of state terrorism aimed at suppressing political dissent.”

Addressing a joint press conference here on Monday, PPP leaders Raza Rabbani, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and Syed Qaim Ali Shah demanded setting up of a committee headed by a judge of the Sindh High Court for a judicial probe into the incident, as well as the earlier incidents in which MPA Abdullah Murad and PPP leader Munawwar Suhrawardi had been killed.

They accused the Sindh government of targeting and victimizing PPP under the blessings of the federal government.

Neither the chief minister nor the home minister contacted Rafique Engineer after the incident despite the fact that Mr Khuhro himself had brought it into the notice of the home minister, Qaim Ali Shah deplored.

The PPP leaders strongly protested insensitivity of the government, and asked it to quit for having miserably failed to restore law and order in the province.

Mr Rabbani said that it was not an isolated incident as PPP MPA Sajid Jokhio had also been maltreated and taken into custody in Malir on Saturday and MPA Akhtar Jadoon had been fired upon a couple of months back.

He said that the government, through such tactics, could not stop Benazir Bhutto from returning home.

Pointing out that a minority government had been imposed through horse trading and at gunpoint, he warned that the government would be responsible for the consequences if it resorted to suppressing the PPP through state terrorism.

Mr Rabbani also criticized the Election Commission for ‘arbitrarily’ extending the time for filing the nomination papers for Senate election, and alleged that the step was aimed at facilitating the government candidates.

Mr Khuhro accused the government of creating lawlessness.