Dictatorial forces continue to hound Pakistan in different garbs and crush the dreams of the founding fathers, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said Saturday in a message marking 38 years since the military overthrow of Pakistan’s first democratic government.
“Dictator’s eggs have grown into full monsters of terrorism, extremism, dictatorial mindset, intolerance and poverty. This is what tin-pot dictator Zia had inflicted on the country and Pakistan is continuously reeling under miseries,” said Bilawal in a statement on the eve of July 5.
Exactly 38 years ago on 5th July 1977, the military regime of General Ziaul Haq overthrew the democratically-elected government of PPP founder Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Bilawal said his maternal grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had “collected the pieces of a shattered Pakistan in 1971, gave it a Constitution, laid foundations of country’s biggest industrial units like Pakistan Steel, Heavy Mechanical Complex etc. He founded the nuclear programme to make the defence of Pakistan invincible, introduced one-man one-vote, land reforms and several other historic projects to put the country on sound tracks.
“However, he was overthrown in the darkness of night by a dictator to put Pakistan on a regressive path and uproot democracy to deprive the people’s right to rule themselves,” he said.
Bilawal vowed that the PPP would continue its mission for “an egalitarian and democratic Pakistan despite conspiracies” against it.
“July 5, 1977 shall remain a Black Day when aspirations of the people of Pakistan were murdered and the country’s democratic forces were subjected to worst human rights violations through hanging, jails and lashes,” he said.
But Torch of Democracy continues to shine with blood and sweats of the martyrs of the long struggle for restoration of true democracy, he added.
