MUZAFFARABAD, May 29: A man who served as personal photographer of Bhutto family for nearly three decades feels frustrated at the alleged cold response from the people who, he believes, have got into their present public offices by courtesy of Bhuttos.
Agha Feroze, a resident of Karachi, makes only one submission that the treasure of more than 4,000 pictures which give an insight into the history, life and struggle of Bhutto family that left ineradicable imprints on Pakistan’s political landscape, should be preserved by the government of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) at an official level.
“I don’t yearn for any reward in cash or kind but my earnest desire is to see these pictures preserved by the PPP government in a museum in Islamabad,” Mr Feroze, 54, told Dawn here at a hall of the MLA Hostel, where he has put on display as much as possible of those pictures for the ‘education of PPP loyalists in Kashmir.’
Previously, he said, he had organised 33 exhibitions of the ‘pictorial history of 100 years of Bhutto family’ in different parts of Pakistan but it was for the first time he had brought these valuable objects to Muzaffarabad.
Wearing a blue safari suit and a traditional Sindhi Ajrak, Mr. Feroze, also a prisoner of 1971 war, recalled his fond memories of the time he spent in the company of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and (President) Asif Ali Zardari.
“I have been a PPP worker since my adolescence and in January 1977, I joined Bhutto family as their personal photographer.
After the judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, I remained associated with Begum Nusrat Bhutto and from 1986 onwards with Benazir Bhutto until her martyrdom in Rawalpindi,” he said.
“I have religiously preserved this history of Bhutto family in pictures. There were times when one picture of Bhuttos or one slogan in their favour would earn you seven lashes, but I did not let them go waste out of my love and commitment,” he said.
Behind his zealousness or obsession, there is a logical thought.
“There might be dozens of books written on Bhuttos but they are beneficial for the literates only. I am an illiterate person and for my likes who are bona-fide legatees of Bhuttos I have added one page in the history through these pictures weighing almost 70 mounds,” he said.
The exhibition has many pictures of Mr Zardari when he was facing imprisonment and trials in different courts of the country.
“When Benazir Bhutto was abroad and Zardari sahib was in jail, I would regularly cover him,” he said, pointing to Mr. Zardari’s pictures.
Mr Feroze said because of financial constraints, it was becoming difficult for him with every passing day to conserve these pictures therefore he wanted the government “that owed its existence to Bhuttos” to take up this responsibility.
“I could sell these pictures and there may be many aspirants to buy them but in that case these would be restricted to a few whereas I want that every PPP worker should benefit and learn from this treasure.”