JACOBABAD, July 20: The family of a Pakistan People’s Party activist, who was seriously injured in the Oct 18, 2007 blasts during Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming rally and died eight months later, is going through a difficult time as the man was the sole breadwinner of the family.

Thirty-year-old Mohammad Siddiq Lashari of Misri Khan village in the Thul area of Jacobabad district, had rendered many services to the PPP and remained faithful to the party’s cause.

He had gone to Karachi on Oct 15, 2007 to join the warm welcome to his leader at Karachi airport. Lashari was part of the welcome rally. He fell victim of the bomb blasts and lost limbs in the attack.

He was rushed to the Jinnah hospital in an Edhi ambulance, where he was admitted. He remained under treatment for about two months.

When he was discharged from the hospital, he was not in a stable condition and his treatment continued for seven months in his village where he spent about Rs50,000 from his pocket without any assistance from his party. He died on June 29, 2008.

Lashari left behind wife Shahul, seven-year-old son Imran, and three daughters, Farzana, Tehmina and Shabana, 9, 5, 3, respectively.

His widow with tears in her eyes told Dawn that Lashari was the only breadwinner of the family and after his death they were helpless.

She said Lashari had many dreams for his children: he wanted to make his son a doctor and daughters well-educated members of society. But his dreams were buried with him.

She said the innocent children still remembered their father and waited for him in the evenings and looked for him in the street.

Three-year-old Shabana always cries saying “Amman! Where is baba?” “When I hear such words from my daughter, I cannot control tears and to console her I tell her that her father is in Karachi and will soon be back,” she said.

Ms Shahul said that she could not afford to educate her children and she had no resources even to survive. She feels extremely sorry that she is unable to fulfill her husband’s dreams.

She feels proud that the sacrifice of her beloved has not gone in vain. However, she says she is shocked that not only the party leaders but also the party workers have forgotten the sacrifice of her husband and left them to suffer alone.

“He was recruited as a teacher in 1995, but later the government of PML-N dismissed him from his service, which caused hardships to the family.”

She recalled that she used to persuade her husband to leave political activities due to their economic conditions. She said that she had asked him to earn livelihood through labour.

She said: “We have no other source of income, but my husband always preferred political activities over the family.”

She said it hurts her and their family when they feel helpless and nobody from the party had shared their grief.

She said their family depended upon a cousin of her husband, Ghazi Khan, who is employed at a mill as a munshi.

Ghazi Khan said that he was very poor and supported both the families with a meager amount of his salary.

He said that his cousin was a Jiyala of the PPP but the party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and other party leaders had left his family in the lurch.

Neither Asif Zardari nor any other party leader remembered his sacrifices, he said. He lamented that they had forgotten his family and left them in abject poverty.

Ghazi Khan appealed to Asif Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to extend help to the family of Lashari.

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