Carrying candles in their hands and tears in their eyes, several mourners, including a large number of women and young men, gathered at the Karachi Press Club (KPC) Sunday evening to pay rich tributes to their beloved leader, the Sindhi nationalist/separatist and former Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi.
The mourners placed a large portrait of Qureshi, in front of which they spread rose petals and lit candles all around to observe a candle light vigil outside the KPC to remember their beloved leader.
Qureshi died under mysterious circumstances in Sakrand, Benazirabad district Friday night. He was laid to rest in his hometown Ratodero, Larkana district Saturday afternoon.
Tens of thousands of people, including JSQM members and supporters and political activists rushed to his native town to attend the funeral. Several attendees were rendered unconscious due to the pain of Qureshi’s departure.
Business activities were suspended, as people in several large and small cities, towns and even villages observed a complete shutter-down strike to mourn Qureshi’s death. Several poets and poetesses of the Sindhi language wrote sad poetry to pay him tribute.
Qureshi spent his entire life following the teachings of JSQM founder, veteran politician and “father of modern Sindhi nationalism” GM Syed.
Syed was the first person to pass the Pakistan Resolution for a separate independent state from the British-era Sindh Assembly.
However, after the fall of Dhaka, he announced his hatred for Pakistan, and started the struggle for Sindh’s separation from the country to establish Sindhudesh, for which he founded the Jeay Sindh Tehreek (JST), which later became JSQM.
Qureshi had joined Syed’s political ideology as a student leader from the platform of JST’s student wing, the Jeay Sindh Student Federation (JSSF).
Qureshi, originally from Motan Pur Mohalla in Ratodero, Larkana district was born on August 10, 1959 in a lower middle class family.
After completing his primary and secondary education in Ratodero, Qureshi went to college in Shikarpur and was enrolled at the Sindh Agriculture University, Tando Jam in 1976.
His father Ghulam Murtaza wanted him to be an agriculture expert, but a meeting in Sann with the iconic leader of the Sindhi nationalist movement Syed was the start of Qureshi’s eventful political career.
Qureshi became an active member of the JSSF and later joined the JST. After Syed’s death in 1995, the JST was renamed JSQM and Qureshi was elected as its deputy convener. He went on to head the party.
Qureshi remained in different jails for around a decade, and during the previous dictatorship, he was also brutally tortured.
After becoming the head of the party, he ran several successful protests, including the famous sit-in at the Sindh-Punjab border town of Ubarwaro against the most controversial project of the Kalabagh Dam, in which former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had also taken part.
In 2007, JSQM organised a massive event – a march from Sukkur to Karachi – and it took 146 days for them to reach the provincial capital.
On March 23 this year, Qureshi-led JSQM organised a freedom march on the MA Jinnah Road in Karachi, in which tens of thousands of people from across the province participated.
Addressing the freedom march rally, Qureshi demanded the US and other superpowers of the world to help the Sindhi-speaking people to get their own country – the Sindhudesh.
The supporters of Sindhudesh have arranged candle light vigils in several cities of Sindh, including Karachi, Hyderabad and Jamshoro. PHOTO BY IMRAN ALI
Candle light vigil for Bashir Khan Qureshi
