HYDERABAD, July 4 Veteran leftist leader Jam Saqi has said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed because he had introduced socialist ideas.

He said that the murder of Mr Bhutto could be avenged only by bringing about a socialist revolution in the country. He said that popular movements erupted when the people's frustration with the system reached its peak.

He was speaking at a seminar on “Reasons and results of Gen Ziaul Haq's bloody dictatorship” organised by the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) and Berozgar Noujawan Tanzeem in collaboration with Sindh People's Students Federation and People's Labour Bureau here on Sunday on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the military coup.

Zohaib Butt, the president of the Punjab chapter of the PSF, said that a revolutionary struggle would have to be launched on the pattern of 1968-69's movement during which people had refused to pay transport fares and workers had taken over factories.

SPSF leader Saddam Khaskheli said that the 1968-69 movement was a harbinger of a revolution launched by Z.A. Bhutto and it needed to be completed now.

Dr Haresh, the editor of Sindhi magazine Tabqati Jaddojehad, said that Z.A. Bhutto had launched a struggle against poverty and hunger and tried to bring about a revolution by nationalising factories and distributing land among haris and he was hanged for it.

“We can avenge the murder of Z.A. Bhutto only by creating a classless society,” Dr Haresh said, and added that it was written even in the basic document of the PPP.