QUETTA, May 19: The Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has rescheduled its national congress and provincial conference in Quetta on May 26 and 27 to express solidarity with the Pakhtun Action Committee which has given a strike call in Karachi for May 25, 26 and 27.

Speaking at a press conference at the Quetta Press Club on Saturday, Mr Akram Shah, Central Secretary-General, said that the provincial conference and national congress would now be held on June 2 and 3.

He claimed that the May 12 Karachi violence was a pre-planned conspiracy hatched by the Musharraf government and fascist organisation MQM to expel about three million Pakhtuns from Karachi but the resistance of the Pakhtuns foiled “ulterior motives” of anti-Pakhtun forces.

Mr Akram Shah asserted that Karachi Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal was demolishing Katchi Abadis inhabited by the Pakhtuns and banning excessive smoke-emitting buses and rickshaws run by Pakhtuns to destroy business interests of a particular community.

In reply to a question whether the PMAP would hold protest rallies in Quetta on May 25 to express solidarity with Pakhtuns, the PMAP leader said that the party would contact other political parties to discuss the issue to prepare a protest programme.

He said the MQM was the brainchild of intelligence agencies and it did not believe in political freedom and democratic rights of other political parties, adding that May 12 events had fully exposed the MQM’s fascist tactics.