HISTORY: THE FORGOTTEN MASSACRE OF MULTAN |
On January 2, 1978, Gen Ziaul Haq’s regime ordered security forces to open fire at workers striking at Colony Textile Mills, Multan, allegedly killing 133 people.
No first information report (FIR) was registered, no civilian trial was held and, aside from a military inquiry whose contents were never shared, a public acknowledgement of this state atrocity has never been made. Instead, what remains is a carefully managed absence from Pakistani history books.
The tragedy that occurred that cold winter afternoon in Multan was a direct response to industrial workers who had emerged as a major political force in 1970s Pakistan.
Following the success of the 1969 students’ and workers’ movement that led to the overthrow of Gen Ayub Khan, leftist politics had strengthened demands for more equitable wealth distribution. During the Ayub dictatorship, state loans given to a small circle of elite industrialists had propped up development statistics but, as wealth disparity dramatically increased, Pakistan’s working class was pushed to economic desperation.
In January 1978, Gen Zia’s martial law regime mercilessly mowed down striking textile mill workers in the ‘City of Saints.’ Till today, the scale of the killings is disputed and no official account exists of what is widely considered the bloodiest massacre in Pakistan’s labour history…
Ayub’s removal and the civil war in East Pakistan, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, forced President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to develop legislation for workers’ rights. In February 1972, his martial law government announced new labour laws for Pakistan.
The military, industrialists and even the politicians who had taken their votes were all alarmed at the strength of consolidated worker power. Bhutto’s labour laws, though flawed, dramatically increased the number of labour unions registered in the country and led to regular strike actions by worker groups over fair pay.
Yet the new labour reforms only existed on paper. Mere months after they came into effect, on June 7, 1972, police killed at least three workers who were protesting against delayed wages by the owners of Feroz Sultan Textile Mills at SITE, Karachi. During one of the funeral processions, police opened fire again, leading to more deaths. Bhutto showed no sympathy, saying the strikers were being manipulated by anti-Pakistan elements.
When Zia took over the country, his martial law framed labour unrest as a threat to public order. This was the most violent act by the state against labourers in Pakistani history — a systematic erasure that reveals the nexus of state-capital power under martial law.
Elite Capture
Understanding the massacre requires understanding who owned the mill — and their proximity to power.
The Colony Group, owners of Multan Colony Textile Mills, exemplified the industrial elite that had prospered under the Ayub regime. With its business primarily in textile manufacturing, this Chinioti/ Sheikh family group had been well-established before Partition and gained considerable strength due to limited competition in the nascent state.
In 1961, the Colony Group was a part of the big five industrial houses, who each held over Rs50 million — a vast fortune by 1961 standards and equivalent to approximately Rs10 billion today, adjusted for an average annual inflation rate of 8.6 percent — in assets. As with the other industrial groups, it benefitted from the establishment of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) in 1952.
Naseer A. Sheikh, the eldest son of the group’s founder Mohammad Ismaeel, served on PIDC’s Board of Directors.........