Former Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto has condemned the use of disproportionate force against young and innocent teenagers in Lyari who were killed by the Rangers Monday evening.
In a statement issued on Tuesday the Chairperson of PPP said that the Rangers were sent to protect the citizens and children of Karachi, not to kill them. The statement said by quoting eyewitnesses that PPP workers including 22 year old Sanni son of Gulzar Masih a Christian and 18 year old Sohail Ahmad son of Saleh Muhammad and a ten year old child Faizan were killed when Rangers in Lyari opened fire on them at around 8.30 PM on Monday without any provocation.
Twenty five-year-old Amjad and 17-year youth Sajjad Ali were injured in the Rangers shoot out. "The Pakistan Peoples Party demands that the Rangers hold an inquiry into the killing of three youth and a child in Lyari who were victims of disproportionate force and lost their lives", she demanded.
She said the killings had devastated the families who could never recover from the tragedy and it must be ensured that such killing does not take place again. Ms Bhutto called upon the judiciary to take suo motu notice of the killings of the three youth. She said that the PPP wanted the blood bath to stop.
"The PPP was unhappy to see that first the people of Karachi lost their lives at the hands of suspecteed MQM terrorists and now were losing their lives at the hands of the Rangers" she maintained.
Ms Bhutto condoled with the families of the two boys as well as with the families of all those who had been killed in the Karachi carnage. She said that the Pakistan Peoples Party called for a Commission to inquire into the bloody events of May 12, 2007.
The former Prime Minister said that the PPP would continue to give political support to the lawyers' movement under which all political parties had rallied to protect the judiciary. She said that the movement for protection of judiciary, which was part of a democratic system was enlarging into a political one. She noted that elections cannot be held freely if gangsters, thugs, terrorists take cities hostage.
She said that the terrorists who came with sticks to beat up the Opposition in Islamabad and came with guns to kill them in Karachi would never permit fair elections.
Therefore under the banner of the lawyers movement the political parties are all consolidating to continue their struggle for the replacement of the present regime with the formation of a national government of consensus to hold fair elections and transfer power to the people, she added.
Ms Bhutto noted that under the present regime the state authority had collapsed the country was heading towards anarchy and chaos. She alleged that the regime was contributing towards civil war by disrupting the constitutional right of freedom of movement and freedom of association with sticks and guns.
She further alleged that the tribal areas had been parcelled out to the Taliban, whereas Tank and Bannu had been given to the religious elements, parts of Islamabad to the Imam of Lal Masjid, Gujrat to the Chaudhries, Attock to the Nazim under whose nearly twenty workers of the PPP had been slaughtered and Karachi to the suspected terrorists, belonging to the MQM.
Ms Bhutto said that democracy could only be restored when a national government was able to offer protection to the innocent citizens in casting the vote free from the shadows of the thugs and terrorists. The former Prime Minister also praised the lawyers and members of the political parties who faced huge risks in fighting for the rule of law and democracy.