ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman and the former President Asif Ali Zardari has regretted the remarks he made in interview with a Private News Channel that sought to give the impression of supporting the absconding the former Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Malir Rao Anwar.
In an interview with Nasim Zehra on 24 News which went on air on Friday night, Asif Ali Zardari called Rao Anwar a “brave kid” as the latter was among those 54 SHOs who had carried out an operation against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) during the second tenure of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
“Rao Anwar is among those brave kids who survived while fighting [against] MQM. There were 54 SHOs who were [involved] in the operations [carried out under the supervision] of General Babar [the then interior minister]. Fifty-three of them were killed and this is the boy who survived,” Zardari said when asked by Nasim Zehra in a lighter note that where his government had hidden Rao Anwar.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the PPP Spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said that Asif Ali Zardari has described his words as misspoken and regretted any offence to anyone.
The Spokesperson said that the former president also acknowledged in another TV interview today that his words about Rao Anwar were indeed misspoken.
Senator Farhatullah Babar said that Asif Ali Zardari has also denounced extra judicial killings as “abhorrent, criminal and unacceptable” and called for bringing to justice all those involved in it.
The PPP Spokesperson said that enforced disappearances and extra judicial killings are twins of a deepening curse.
It is unthinkable that the Pakistan People’s Party would support it in any form or manner, he said adding that the party’s record in and out of the Parliament is a testimony to it.
Farhatullah Babar further said the Co-Chairman PPP realizes that his remarks made unwittingly in the flow of conversation may have caused anguish and has regretted it.
