Dear Mr Bilawal! I congratulate you with a very heavy heart on taking the oath as a federal minister and on becoming the youngest foreign minister of Pakistan, the honour which previously your grandfather had. Your taking up a cabinet position in the cabinet of one of the Sharifs has been taken as a betrayal to the Bhutto family and PPP. I had been voting for PPP since the first general elections, always blindly never bothering to find out about who the PPP candidate in my constituency. Alas, I had to see this day also that in the next general elections either I would not cast my vote or do it in favour of someone not from PPP, mainly because of you joining the cabinet of Sharifs who in the past had left no stone unturned to defame and disgrace Bhuttos, not even sparing the late mother of your grandfather ZAB.

They are the ones who celebrated the judicial murder of the most charismatic leader of the world, your grandfather, they are the ones who initiated “Operation Midnight Jackal” against your beloved mother to oust her from the PM house through a vote of nonconfidence, they are the ones who always conspired against the Bhuttos. Have you not heard their dirty tactics, have you forgotten the tears which rolled down through the beautiful and loving eyes of your shaheed mother when elder Sharif called her “Yellow Cab” on the floor of the house? Do you remember your mother was made Prime Minister of “Islamabad only” through the political manoeuvrings of the Sharifs? She was labelled as a “security risk” , when the elder Sharif even refused to give due protocol to your mother as the PM of the country when he was the CM of Punjab.

Mr Bilawal, go and read once again the writings of your mother who must be turning in her grave restlessly upon seeing her loving son joining hands with the Sharifs who made the life of that great lady miserable, sorrowful and woeful. Sharifs are the ones who made your mother wait for hours and hours in front of prisons, along with you and your sister as toddlers, in the heat to meet your father incarnated over there on false charges. Have you forgotten how the tongue of your father was injured while under arrest? Fresh your memory of the Justice Qayum episode as to how your present boss was heard instructing him to award the maximum punishment to your mother.

Like the millions of Pakistanis who are diehard supporters of PPP, the jialas who are heartbroken on your taking up a cabinet position under a Sharif, who live by “Democracy is the best revenge”, in whose name are you taking revenge? Revenge of the tears of your mother, revenge of the blood falling through the head of your grandmother, revenge of the judicial murder of your grandfather? Revenge of lashes which the workers of PPP received?

AAMIR AQIL,

Lahore.