KARACHI: PML-Q leader and former Sindh Chief Minister of Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim was hit on the face with a shoe by a PPP supporter when he came to the provincial assembly to take oath.

Rahim, who was Chief Minister when late Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming motorcade was attacked by suicide bombers in October last year, has been target of the PPP workers since the new assembly was convened on Saturday.

He could not take oath on Saturday as he left the assembly premises after being hounded by PPP workers.

As Rahim sat in the assembly before taking oath on Saturday, PPP workers in the visitors’ galleries shouted slogans against him and flung shoes at him.

When Rahim was leaving the assembly through a side entrance, a PPP worker evaded the security personnel guarding him and hit him on the face with a shoe. Footage of the incident was aired on TV channels and is available at http://www.sindhtoday.net/videos/504.htm

The MQM members in the assembly staged a walk out protesting the attack on Rahim.

Though the assembly secretariat had cancelled all passes issued for the visitors’ galleries after the fracas on Saturday, a large number of PPP workers were present within the building on Monday.

A woman PPP activist brandished chappals in her hands and said, “This man said so many insulting things about a good woman like Benazir Bhutto. We will not spare him.”

Senior PPP leaders like Nisar Khuhro failed to cool the tempers of the party workers who did not disperse even after Rahim had left the assembly premises.

Media reports last year said that Bhutto had named Rahim as one of the persons posing a threat to her life but this has never been officially confirmed by the PPP.

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