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Monday, May 17, 2010
Our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: He takes out his mobile phone from the front pocket to receive a call. There appears slain PPP leader Benazir Bhuttos portrait on the screensaver of his cell phone. Col (R) Anwar Khan Afridi, who remained loyal to the PPP for nearly four decades, has now joined the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
Khan was the first president of the Peoples Student Federation (PSF) from NWFP, which is now has been renamed as Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa. His spouse still is the president of the PPP womens wing of Jhelum district. But he strongly believes she will also join the MQM soon.
Close to him was sitting on carpet Fateh Khan, a civil engineer, who is also no more an activist of the ruling party. He also served the Peoples Labour Bureau of the district for over two decades.
We left the party after the sense of being ignored and alienation reached its peak. You see we were forced by the circumstances to look the other way at a time when our party is in power. This does not happen these days, Anwar said, who had returned as many as 16 medals to GHQ after the eruption of the judicial crisis in 2007. This was to show solidarity with the judiciary.
He pointed out the emergence of core committee in the PPP had also caused resentment among the partys loyalists. We do not blame anyone. We have had no option other than saying goodbye to the party, he defended his decision to quit the PPP.
During an informal chat with The News here at an MQM function that was addressed by the partys supremo Altaf Hussain on Saturday night, Anwar, a former staff officer of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in Mangla, he said was happy he had joined a party that was a true political platform for the poor and deprived segments.
Each MQM minister, senator, MNA and MPA is bound to stay at Nine Zero (MQM head office in Karachi) turn by turn to listen to the peoples problems and offer solutions. Does this happen in any other party? We find our ministers and legislators on our side always, he remarked.
He vehemently brushed aside the impression that the MQM had a militant wing to force its decisions and will on rivals and dictate terms, saying had it been true, the party had not thrived over the years; instead, it would have fizzled out like smoke in thin air by now.
No, no, this is not so, was his reaction to a question by this correspondent, pointing out to one MQM activist, who was standing in the middle of audience, trying to find out, had any one not made sure his attendance at the function.
Asked what the picture of Benazir Bhutto was doing in his cell phone, Anwar said she was his leader and had she been alive, they would have not faced the situation that compelled them to part ways with PPP.
Fateh Khan proudly tells The News that he still has his human bloodstained shalwar kameez hung in his bedroom. He miraculously had survived, but some party activists close to him had died on the spot.
The tainted dress reminds him of the time and the day, his leader was assassinated on Murree Road and he was, standing hardly a few feet away from her. My dress I wore on that tragic day reminds me how mercilessly, our leader was martyred before us and we could not do anything, he said, wearing a sombre look on his face.
PPP veteran laments BBs death, joins MQM
Our correspondent
ISLAMABAD: He takes out his mobile phone from the front pocket to receive a call. There appears slain PPP leader Benazir Bhuttos portrait on the screensaver of his cell phone. Col (R) Anwar Khan Afridi, who remained loyal to the PPP for nearly four decades, has now joined the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
Khan was the first president of the Peoples Student Federation (PSF) from NWFP, which is now has been renamed as Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa. His spouse still is the president of the PPP womens wing of Jhelum district. But he strongly believes she will also join the MQM soon.
Close to him was sitting on carpet Fateh Khan, a civil engineer, who is also no more an activist of the ruling party. He also served the Peoples Labour Bureau of the district for over two decades.
We left the party after the sense of being ignored and alienation reached its peak. You see we were forced by the circumstances to look the other way at a time when our party is in power. This does not happen these days, Anwar said, who had returned as many as 16 medals to GHQ after the eruption of the judicial crisis in 2007. This was to show solidarity with the judiciary.
He pointed out the emergence of core committee in the PPP had also caused resentment among the partys loyalists. We do not blame anyone. We have had no option other than saying goodbye to the party, he defended his decision to quit the PPP.
During an informal chat with The News here at an MQM function that was addressed by the partys supremo Altaf Hussain on Saturday night, Anwar, a former staff officer of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in Mangla, he said was happy he had joined a party that was a true political platform for the poor and deprived segments.
Each MQM minister, senator, MNA and MPA is bound to stay at Nine Zero (MQM head office in Karachi) turn by turn to listen to the peoples problems and offer solutions. Does this happen in any other party? We find our ministers and legislators on our side always, he remarked.
He vehemently brushed aside the impression that the MQM had a militant wing to force its decisions and will on rivals and dictate terms, saying had it been true, the party had not thrived over the years; instead, it would have fizzled out like smoke in thin air by now.
No, no, this is not so, was his reaction to a question by this correspondent, pointing out to one MQM activist, who was standing in the middle of audience, trying to find out, had any one not made sure his attendance at the function.
Asked what the picture of Benazir Bhutto was doing in his cell phone, Anwar said she was his leader and had she been alive, they would have not faced the situation that compelled them to part ways with PPP.
Fateh Khan proudly tells The News that he still has his human bloodstained shalwar kameez hung in his bedroom. He miraculously had survived, but some party activists close to him had died on the spot.
The tainted dress reminds him of the time and the day, his leader was assassinated on Murree Road and he was, standing hardly a few feet away from her. My dress I wore on that tragic day reminds me how mercilessly, our leader was martyred before us and we could not do anything, he said, wearing a sombre look on his face.
PPP veteran laments BBs death, joins MQM
