Screenshot showing PPP leader Sohail Anwar Siyal speaking at the Sindh Assembly.
KARACHI: A Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader caused outrage when he delivered a fiery speech against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday. Many accused him of discriminating against the Urdu Speaking community and being inflammatory and misogynistic in his speech.
“Sindh has been rearing those who migrated from India. We’re the ones who supported them, opened our homes and hearts to them and gave them our land. They should first consider themselves Sindhis then ask for their rights,” Sohair Anwar Siyal said as saying in the assembly, in response to a comment by an MQM leader who said that Karachi supports Sindh. He also added, “Do they think Sindhis wear bangles?”. “Wearing bangles” is a figure of speech used to describe a person who is ‘weak’ because he wears bangles ‘like a woman’.
This caused social media to erupt, with many calling out the PPP leader. Members of his own party also distanced themselves from his comments, with PPP leader Saeed Ghani taking to Twitter to disagree with Siyal’s comments.
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Meanwhile, MQM-P leader Ali Raza Abidi demanded Siyal’s removal from the assembly.
After the backlash, Siyal said he was not against the community and that his comments were directed against a certain mentality.
“I didn’t say anything against Urdu-speaking people,” he said, according to Samaa TV. “Everyone living in Sindh and Pakistan is our brother.”
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