ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party yesterday attacked Prime Minister Imran Khan for not visiting the victims of the Machh massacre.
Questioning PM Khan’s absence in Quetta, PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate Sherry Rehman said the entire country was annoyed over the PM’s absence in Machh, Balochistan.
“He “the PM) is nowhere to be seen. Condemning the incident on Twitter is not enough. He needs to be there on the ground with the Hazara community,” the PPP Vice President said.
She added: “For the past three days, thousands of people from the Hazara community are sitting outside in this freezing weather with the dead bodies of their loved ones waiting for justice but what do they get instead? Ministers asking them what benefit will they give to Imran Khan if he comes here! The audacity of these statements is not lost on anyone.”
She said PM Khan is the same person who was slamming the government in 2013 for the attack on Hazaras. “What happened now? Is the opposition responsible for this also? It is the duty of the PM to be with his people in the time of their grief. Where is the PM of Pakistan when his citizens are waiting for him,” the Senator said.
The PPP leader said one could only imagine the severity of what they were going through as they had not buried their loved ones yet and all the government could do was to offer them monetary relief. “This is the time to be with them and share their pain. What is keeping the PM and CM Balochistan (Jan Kamal) away from visiting the Hazara community? Their absence is only making things worse,” she maintained. The Senator said the continuous violence in Balochistan was a cause of concern and a National Action Plan was needed. “The government is clueless as always and people are paying the price for their incompetency,” she contended.
The PPP Vice President said Article 9 of the Constitution states that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty. “It is clear that the government has failed and has been unable to ensure safety of the Hazara community. The level of apathy displayed by this government is shocking and condemnable. They should be accorded full protection under the law,” she demanded.
Meanwhile, PPP Deputy Information Secretary Palwasha Khan said that Prime Minister Imran Khan was refusing to go to Quetta at a time when the Hazara community was waiting for sympathy.
“Hazara community is protesting for the last four days in extreme cold weather. Imran Khan has sent a foreign citizen Zulfi Bukhari to Quetta to sympathize with the bereaved families. The government sent representatives like him who said in front of the Hazara people, that what good could the arrival of the prime minister do? This is not the type of tone that should be used with a community that has suffered so much and is hoping and looking towards the chief executive of the country for support,” she told a news conference here yesterday.
Palwasha Khan said that an innocent student was shot down by the police force in Islamabad and the bereaved father of the student had accused the government of turning this country into a massive graveyard.
She said if the National Action Plan was implemented in letter and in spirit then the Hazara community would have not lost their loved ones.
Separately, former deputy speaker and general secretary PPP Khyber Pakhtunkhaw Faisal Karim Kundi yesterday said that federal minister Murad Saeed should answer the questions about the corruption by the government instead of levelling false accusations against the PPP leadership.
In his reaction to the news conference by Murad Saeed, Kundi alleged that the corruption was rampant not only in Khyber Pakhtunkhaw and Punjab governments but also in the federal government.
“Billion Trees Project and BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Peshawar are just two examples of mega corruption,” he claimed.
He added: “Every brick of the Bani Gala palace has been acquired through corruption. Imran Khan is involved in every corrupt practice through his front men.”
Kundi said PM Khan and his ministers cannot face the public or journalists and Murad Saeed held his news conference in a room without a single media person.