Abrogator of Constitution must be punished: Zardari

ISLAMABAD: Former President Asif Zardari Tuesday said the sanctity of the Constitution demands that “we not only act upon it in letter and spirit and jealously safeguard it but also to punish those treasonous elements that have abrogated and subverted this foundational document of the state.”

“It is a national disgrace that a dictator abrogated the Constitution in 1977 and later ridiculed it as ‘a mere 15-page document’ that he boasted could be torn at will,” he said in a message on the eve of the Constitution Day on April 10 when the unanimously adopted Constitution of Pakistan was passed by the National Assembly on this day in 1973.

The former President said tearing the Constitution is tearing the soul of the nation and ridiculing it is ridiculing the people. “Those who tear and ridicule the Constitution are the traitors of the nation. Dictators and usurpers must be punished; they will be in the fullness of time,” he said.

Zardari paid glowing tributes to Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for “forging historic consensus among all provinces, political parties and shades of opinion” in making the Constitution. He also lauded Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto as the icon of democracy and constitutionalism and countless political leaders and workers belonging to different political parties who rendered huge sacrifices in the cause of safeguarding democracy and the Constitution