Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, while campaigning for the forthcoming elections on Monday, said that he would now himself resolve issues of the people.

Speaking to supporters in Gharo city of Thatta district, the PPP chief said that they had presented their manifesto for the upcoming elections, noting that in the past the party initiated revolutionary programmes like Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) especially for the underprivileged sections of the society.

“PPP has always served the people and now I will myself resolve public issues,” he vowed. “We will provide food cards to masses, through which they will get food at subsidised rates,” he announced.

Bilawal told the participants that he needed their support and urged them to ‘become his arms’. “I want to change the fate of the country, and if the people are with us, then no one can stop us,” he said.

The Bhutto scion said that eliminating hunger was part of their manifesto. “We will open food centres in every area, which will be run by women.”

Undeterred by a mob attack on his caravan a day earlier during his electoral rally in Karachi’s Lyari neighbourhood, Bilawal hit the city roads once again early Monday. “PPP does not believe in the politics of violence,” the PPP chairman said, as he stepped out of his car en route to interior Sindh to address supporters. “My warm welcome in Lyari did not go down well with opposing parties,” he added.

Speaking to supporters in Quaidabad, the Bhutto scion said that stones were pelted at his rally on Sunday under a conspiracy.

After Sindh, Bilawal will campaign in southern region of Punjab province and then on to the rest of the country.

Raids under way to arrest suspects

A first information report (FIR) was filed Sunday night against 400-450 unidentified persons, including 13 locals, for rioting during the electoral rally of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, a private TV channel reported, with the case including terrorism charges as well.

SSP City Samiullah Soomro said the location of the suspects has been traced by using their mobile numbers and that raids are under way to arrest them.

Following the incident, Bilawal took to Twitter to talk about what had happened and how rioting and disturbing the peace of the metropolis could not be termed ‘protest’. “Stone-pelting is not a protest. When a person throws stones at another, they should be called rioters instead of protesters,” he wrote, asking, “Should this continue, would using guns be called protest as well?” “Proud of people of Lyari who didn’t respond to the politics of violence. Sending saboteurs to opponents’ events reprehensible,” he added.

The Bhutto family scion went on to say, “LEA inaction & [interim government’s] irresponsible statements are alarming. People of Lyari responded by coming out in droves to welcome along 8hr tour prove that such tactics won’t deter us.”

Published in Daily Times, July 3^rd 2018.