JSQM threatens protests on 30th

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Qureshi on Friday announced that province-wide protest rallies and demonstrations would be organised on May 30 to press the authorities to release “missing” nationalist activists, including Dr Safdar Sarki. Addressing a news conference here, the JSQM chief regretted that despite the “long march” from Sukkur to Karachi, the government paid no heed to the issue. He said if the government did not take notice of even the May 30 protests, then the JSQM would block the National Highway at Hatri for 24 hours, halting traffic to and from the Punjab.

PPP-government deal embarrassment to deniers: Sindh CM

Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim on Tuesday claimed that Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairwoman and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had accepted Gen Pervez Musharraf as president in uniform, which was a serious blow to those who had been denying the party would do a deal with the government, Geo television reported.
Talking to reporters, Mr Rahim said the Pakistan Muslim League was growing stronger day by day as other political parties were joining it. He said Ms Bhutto should come to Pakistan and vote for Gen Musharraf before talking about inking a deal.

Those accepting Gen Musharraf as their leader were welcome to the ruling camp, he said. To a question about corruption cases against Ms Bhutto, he said this matter was for the courts to decide.

Courtesy: DT

Former Sindh CM & PPP leader Abdullah Shah dead

Former Sindh chief minister Syed Abdullah Shah died here on Saturday at a local private hospital at the age of 76, after suffering from cancer. Shah had recently returned to Pakistan after 10 years in exile and had secured bail in several NAB references. His son, MPA Murad Ali Shah, said that his father loved his motherland and thus wanted to buried here. Shah’s funeral prayers will be offered at his ancestral village of Bajara Sehwan, Dadu at 6:00 a.m. Sunday. He leaves behind a wife, two sons and five daughters.Syed Abdullah Shah served as the chief minister of Sindh, speaker and deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, provincial food and agriculture minister and as a senator. He born in 1931 in Bajara Sehwan in Dadu where he received his early education. After reading law at SM Law College he started practicing. He joined the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1970 and become a minister in the cabinet of Mumtaz Bhutto and Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi in the party’s first government. He also played an active role in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) against the dictatorship of Gen Ziaul Haq. He was put behind bars.Shah was an arch political rival of the late GM Syed and Koral Shah in Sehwan from where he contested the elections from the PPP platform. He was a close relative of the Gaddi Nasheen of Lal Shahbaz Qalander. When PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto became prime minister in 1988, Shah became the speaker of the Sindh Assembly and later, in 1993, he held the post of CM. It was during his tenure as CM that his own brother, Syed Ehsan Ali Shah, was murdered in Karachi, and Benazir’s brother Murtaza Bhutto was also killed in his tenure. After this incident, Shah tendered his resignation but Bhutto did not accept it. While he was CM, Shah openly demanded that the areas of Jesalmir and Junagardh (now in India), which were originally a part of Sindh, should be returned to the province. After the killing of Mir Murtaza Bhutto and the dissolution of the PPP government, Shah went into exile in Canada and the United States.
Courtesy: DT