PPP Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has demanded that history be “corrected” by declaring the execution of Z.A. Bhutto a judicial murder.

In a press statement issued here on Friday, he said that for 41 years, we [PPP people] had been waiting for justice. Apologies were offered over condoning martial law but, unfortunately, declaring the execution a judicial murder had been evaded till date, he said although Justice Naseem Hassan Shah, a member of the bench that had passed the conviction order had later confessed that it was judicial murder.

Mr Khuhro demanded early hearing of the relevant reference sent by [former president] Asif Ali Zardari.

He said it was Z.A. Bhutto who gave the country a unanimous Constitution while Asif Zardari should be credited for the 18th Constitutional Amendment. He said Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was following in the footprints of his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and mother, Benazir Bhutto. He predicted that Bilawal would soon bring about awami raj (people’s rule)’.

Mr Khuhro also spoke about Sindh government’s crisis management measures. He said that in the wake of federal government’s reluctance to provide data of needy people, the provincial government decided to go ahead with the first phase of its plan to distribute free ration among daily wage earners and other deserving families.

He said deputy commissioners would head the committees tasked with the distribution process through chairmen of union councils and union committees.

He put a question mark over distribution of relief assistance through the prime minister’s ‘Tiger Force’ saying that transparency in the process seemed bleak and doubtful. He said federal government had become a ‘donation campaigner’ instead of a source of providing genuine relief to the masses.

The senior PPP leader alleged that the prime minister was spending taxpayers’ money on printing shirts for Tiger Force.

He said that the SMS service designed by the federal government to reach relief-deserving persons was full of flaws. “Even people like Shabbar Zaidi are shown as deserving individual,” he claimed.

Mr Khuhro demanded broadening of the base of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and bringing in more people in its bracket.

He alleged that the federal government was lending no support to provinces in this difficult time.

He asked PPP lawmakers to generously donate towards relief to the poor and refrain from photo sessions.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2020