The Sindh Rawadari March held on October 13, 2024, was a landmark event, highlighting the refusal of the people of Sindh to accept any intolerant agenda that certain quarters have been trying to impose on the province much in the same manner as has happened in the rest of the country.

The manner in which the police cracked down on activists, civil society members, human-rights defenders, intellectuals, and journalists unfortunately demonstrated an inherent apathy – or rather antipathy – in our security personnel towards human rights and all those who stand to defend these rights.

Jami Chandio and his daughter Romasa, HRCP Sindh vice-chair Khizar Qazi, Sindhu Nawaz Ghangro, Alia Bakhshal, Nasir Mansoor, Saif Samejo, Riaz Ali Chandio, Niaz Kalani, Punhal Sario, and many others were on the receiving end of police atrocities. The same police force across Pakistan displays unusual alacrity in acting on complaints of blasphemy that in many cases have proven to be untrue or simply ill-intentioned.

The Sindh Rawadari March Action Committee issued an ultimatum to the PPP demanding that MNA Ameer Ali Shah be unseated from his seat in the National Assembly. Shah had garlanded the policemen involved in the custodial death of Dr Shahnwaz Kunbhar in Umerkot. It is imperative to keep pressure on the PPP and the Sindh government to take stern action against those involved in the sordid episode of this extrajudicial killing and the subsequent crackdown on the Rawadari march. There is hardly any doubt that the Sindh government has been wittingly or unwittingly using double standards.

This duality of the PPP shows that it attempts to strike a balance between intolerant forces and those who promote tolerance (rawadari) in society. Though the Sindh government has sought an apology for police action against peaceful protesters, the measures the police took to........

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