No room for ethnic politics in Karachi: Kamal

KARACHI : A former leader of the MQM and now Chairman of the Pak Sarzameen Party, Syed Mustafa Kamal, on Sunday said that restoration of peace in Karachi in the aftermath of a security operation is more of an embarrassment for the patriotic Pakistanis.

Addressing a Pashtun gathering at the Al-Asif Square in Sohrab Goth on Sunday, the PSP leader said the larger attendance of the Pashtun community in the rally underscores his conviction that Karachi does not belong to any ethnic or national group and thereby there is no room for narrow ethnic based politics. He said that the PSP’s political-social model offers solution to the problems confronted by all of those living in the metropolis. “The job of MNAs and MPAs is to legislate and not to build roads. I will bring up the youth of Sohrab Goth to a level where they themselves will resolve the issues of Sohrab Goth,” he said. Highlighting the need for a grand national charter between the State and its disgruntled sons, Kamal said now is the most opportune time for the charter.

Kamal said “guns, bullets and operations are not the solution. It is a fact that if someone can unite the hearts and heal the wounds, then people will forget and forego the 40-year-old enmity and unite for their common cause,” he said.

"I will not allow anyone to be discriminated in the name of the language or ethnicity,” he said. “The PSP is the voice of the oppressed and would stone wall all the oppressors. We have brought an end to the politics of guns and bullets and replaced them with love and affection, this is the miracle of recent human history,” the PSP chairman said.

The PSP chief said that innocent youth continue to fall prey to ethnic politics because the rulers play with their lives for the sake of their ministries and financial interests. “The graveyards of the city are full of bodies of the youth who fell victims to Karachi's ethnic violence.”

Thanking the members of the Pashtun community for attending the rally in large numbers, Kamal said this shows that the PSP has foiled all the plots to pit people of different ethnicities against each other.

“Today, brothers are embracing each other, and there is no more a restriction for people of any nationality to live or work in any part of Karachi."

He said that the dark night of oppression is over and the era of the oppressed is heralding. “Now the oppressed will not be asked about their caste or creed and the people will now hold the oppressors accountable regardless of their language,” he said.

He said that the nation has to rethink that despite all actions and policies no change has come, the oppressor irrespective of his ethnic background is victimising everyone. “People from every walk of life are joining the PSP today in large numbers,” he said. PSP President Anis Qaimkhani, members of the Central Executive Committee and National Council were also present on the occasion.