Bibi was Eliminated from the Scene because she had her Own Vision and Ideology for Pakistan

It is the last exclusive interview of Senator Syed Iqbal Haider. It was recorded a month before his death. He was senior advocate of Supreme Court of Pakistan, former senator, Attorney General of Pakistan, law minister and human rights minister in the cabinet of Ms. Benazir Bhutto and secretary-general of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Jahangir’s World Times (JWT): Why did you leave Pakistan People’s Party?
Syed Iqbal Haider: Ms. Benazir Bhutto gave me enormous honour. She appointed me on different positions and she always assigned me significant responsibilities because she had confidence in me. In fact, it was her sad demise which apparently was the main reason of my quitting politics. The reason to leave me PPP was not that I had other options, instead the present ruling party and the rulers are not according to my nature, therefore, I left politics and the party too. Currently, I am working with Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. My aim is to make Pakistan a tolerant and secular society as well to work for normalisation of Indo-Pak relations. Here, I would like to clarify that secularism does not mean a non-religious society; in fact, secularism allows everyone to practise his religion freely. Quaid-e-Azam expressed his views categorically in his August 11, 1947 address that Pakistan would not be a theocratic state and the religion would be a personal affair of individuals; the state would have nothing to do with the religion. But alas! we ignored Quaid’s views and now it’s a different Pakistan. Today, it’s not only the minorities, even Muslims go to the mosques and imambargahs under the shade of guns; it is a great tragedy. It’s so sad and regrettable that Muslims are being murdered by the Muslims in the name of Islam. We fought four wars with India but number of our soldiers martyred in the wars is far less than the number of martyrs in the war with Taliban.  Pakistan army lost about 9,000 soldiers including one lieutenant general, one major general and four or five brigadiers. Furthermore, they also destroyed our schools and killed about 80,000 people. Unfortunately today, Taliban are challenging the writ of Pakistan. They want to take whole Pakistan under their control to establish the rule of their own choice. The credit for the whole disaster goes to Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, for their wrong policies which ignited the hell out of that.

JWT: Karachi is not only the biggest city but also a big source of revenue for Pakistan, what is the cause of this state of anarchy in the city?

 SIH: Karachi is under fire since 1985. Actually, it started after the death of Bushra Ziadi, a young college student. It was April 1985 when Bushra Zaidi, a student of Sir Syed College was killed by a minibus at Churangi No.1 of Nazimabad. The minibus was driven by a Pathan. Either it was an accident or a deliberate act but it had changed the scenario of Karachi which still continues. Soon after that, a bus of Dow Medical College students went to the Pathan area, they were chanting slogans like, ‘Runaway, Mohajirs are coming to kill you’. In retaliation, a van went to the Mohajir area and they were also shouting ‘Runaway Mohajirs we are coming to kill you’. I attended the proceedings of Judicial Commission set up for the ‘Bushra Zaidi Case’. I myself heard the witnesses. So, this is how Pakistani secret agencies started war between Pathans and Mohajirs. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq is the one who did all that. God will never forgive him for his bad deeds. For your readers I want to tell that during Zia’s reign Sohrab Goath, Ali Garh Colony, and Hyderabad were witnessing severe riots, even the election of 1988 was held under curfew. I myself contested election of 1988 during curfew. Army was deployed everywhere but riots were also going on. On the polling day, my tent was set ablaze, opponents were in the polling booth busy in rigging the election. I spoke to a colonel to go inside and stop the rigging, but, he replied that he was not allowed to go inside the polling booth. Then in 1997 elections, same thing happened, ‘Sher (Lion)’ had won an overwhelming majority in Karachi. I happened to be the chief election organiser of PPP those days, I use to sign the election ticket of PPP candidates so, I called all the authorities including Election Commission but in vain.