Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad on Wednesday vowed to hang those behind the 12 May 2007 carnage.

Talking to reporters in Karachi, he alleged that the Pakistan Sarzameen Party chief was indulged in massive corruption. He said Kamal had ruined the city.

“In my opinion, he [Kamal] is a very dishonourable, mean, low and bipolar person,” Ibad said, mockingly inviting the PSP chief to visit a hospital to “cure all his diseases”.

He referred to Kamal as Mustafa ‘Kudal’, accusing him of plundering Karachi and sending money to Malaysia and London.

“The term china-cutting initially surfaced in 2008,” he said, “When Mustafa Kamal was city mayor. There are two aspects of china-cutting in the city – one is encroachment, the other is targeted killings and cross-killings.”

“Those who claim Karachi saw development only during their era, I want to tell them that their tenure only saw corruption and delay in projects. They ruined the Lyari Expressway and K-4 projects. Just to grant contracts to their own companies, they delayed projects of national importance,” he alleged.

Earlier on Monday, the governor and Kamal traded barbs after the former mayor accused the governor of stopping several lawmakers from joining the PSP, indulging in corruption and providing “oxygen” to MQM founder Altaf Hussain after his August 22 speech.

He continued, “To restore peace in the city, we have decided to focus on one or two crimes from each category in order to bring the culprits to justice.”

“We are committed to hanging the culprits of the May 12, 2007, carnage and making them an example for others.”

Similarly, 300 people were burnt to death. An amount was received from the factory owners and instead of providing it to the affected families, the sum was used for procuring arms and other personal and nefarious purposes,” he added.

“I assure you that the culprits will not be spared.”

“We are also following the case of weapons recovery from Karachi, it was the largest recovered cache of arms in the history of Pakistan.

We are investigating when the arms were bought and who was involved in their purchase and movement.”

Ibad expressed his belief that the arms were purchased to fight the army.

The governor added that those behind ethnic cleansing would be probed.

“The culprits, belonging to any political party, behind ethnic cleansing will be investigated. You will see how we punish them,” he added. “I cannot provide a deadline for completion of the ongoing operation in Karachi. However, I assure you, not a second is being wasted.”