Countering allegations of blasphemy by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), senior PPP stalwart Aitzaz Ahsan on Monday claimed the former allied party of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was trying to incite people’s emotions by raising the issue.
The PPP landed in a controversy with the MQM earlier this month when Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah remarked that “the use of word Muhajir was an insult”.
The controversial statement was not taken lightly by the MQM, which called Oct 17 the “most unfortunate day in the history of Pakistan” given that the senior PPP leader termed ‘Muhajir’ an objectionable word at least four times.
On Sunday, the MQM hoisted black flags at all party offices across the country and observed a ‘black day’ in protest to the statement by Shah, who had already apologised and retracted his words after facing criticism.
Speaking to reporters, Aitzaz said the PPP believed parties like MQM and Awami National Party (ANP) were against all sorts of extremism and would never use religion as a tool to achieve their ‘negative goals’.
“MQM used the issue to incite people’s emotions,” the PPP leader said.
“This was least expected from MQM because we have been in government with them, but what they did [on Sunday] left all the rational segments of the society in surprise,” he said.
Ahsan also said that it was unfair on anyone’s part to consider themselves as equals to the migrants of Makkah who accompanied the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) on his migration to Madina.
The PPP leader also slammed the ‘foul language’ used by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) against PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.
Responding to PTI’s Gujrat power show, Aitzaz lamented by saying: “We are peaceful and tolerant. It is open to everyone the way PPP had been rounded up with criticism during its government.”
“Yet we had set an example of tolerance. We have always taught this and will continue doing so,” the PPP leader said, adding that their workers may not remain tolerant all the time if the “use of foul language” against his party did not stop.
Aitzaz also strongly warned opponents against pushing the PPP to the wall.
During PTI’s Gujrat rally, Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Raheed Ahmed had lashed out at the PPP leadership and called its patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari “Billo Rani”.
Mocking his Urdu accent, Rasheed had advised the PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to invest some of his wealth on Bilawal in order to remove what he termed as a ‘technical fault’.
