Zia’s remants not happy in PPP’s meeting at Liaquat Bagh: Nafisa

RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Peoples Party on Wednesday insisted to get permission to hold the rally at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on Friday to observe Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary. But the district administration has refused to give permission for security reasons.

The opposition party had announced a public meeting in Liaquat Bagh the place where the former prime minister was assassinated on Dec 27, 2007, but the district administration refused to give permission and the PPP challenged the decision before the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court.

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The court summoned the Rawal­pindi deputy commissioner on Thursday and allowed the PPP to make arrangements at the venue of the public meeting, but made it clear that “the gathering in question shall be subject to the decision of the instant writ petition”.

But two senior PPP leaders in Rawalpindi and Karachi hinted at observing Benazir Bhutto’s death anniversary at the same venue whe­­ther the party got permission or not.

PPP-Parliamen­tarian Information Secretary Nafisa Shah during her visit to the venue to oversee preparations for the Friday event said, “PPP workers from all over the country are on their way to Liaquat Bagh, but opponents and remnants of (former military dictator) Ziaul Haq faced problems over this.”

She blamed the government for trying to stop the PPP from holding the public meeting and warned that party workers and supporters would react over this. “If the workers rise against the conspiracy to stop them from observing the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, the remnants of Zia will find no place to hide,” she said.

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Meanwhile, Dr Shah along with party leaders Rubina Khalid, Shaheen Dar, Sardar Ayub, Sadia Danish, Nargis Faiz Malik and Nazir Dhoki visited Liaquat Bagh to review the arrangements for the Friday event.

Talking to reporters, she said PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would observe the death anniversary of his mother at Liaquat Bagh, but the remnants of Zia and opponents did not like it.

She said Liaquat Bagh had a historical status since Benazir Bhutto was assassinated here and Mr Bhutto-Zardari was coming to observe his mother’s death anniversary for the very first time.