Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League (Functional)’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi said the incident is a lesson for the party leadership, all members and every other person that women must be respected under any condition and at all places of their respective work.

Speaking to the media outside the assembly after the assembly session here on Monday, she further said “It is also a lesson for every woman that we must stand firm against the discrimination we face in our daily lives. We must speak out and we must stand up for right.

Nusrat reiterated that such incidents must never be allowed to happen again. She also appreciated everyone who supported her through the ordeal.

“I belong to an area in Sindh where very few women get opportunities to move ahead in their lives. Very few women from my area make it to the assembly,” she stressed that she did not want any women to face harassment at work.

“My character is in front of you all. I have never humiliated anyone in my life. I have always worked to improve communities, my society. Yet this happened to me,” she said.

I appealed to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari because he is still seeking justice for his mother Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.

“He is still shouting for justice for his mother’s assassination. Women even in the assembly are not getting justice.”

“But it is a respected tradition in Sindh that when someone covers a woman’s head with a shawl, treating her as his mother or sister, then the apology must be accepted,” she continued.

“It is out of respect for this tradition that I am forgiving Imdad Pitafi.

Nusrat Sehar had also threatened prior to the assembly session that she would set herself ablaze if Imdad Pitafi was not removed as provincial minister within the next two days.

Holding a bottle of petrol in one hand, the PML-F lawmaker had threatened that she would douse herself in petrol and burn herself if justice was not served within two days time.

She had given an ultimatum of two days to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) to remove the Sindh Minister for Works and Services, Imdad Pitafi.

“Working women are harassed,” she had said, referring to her heated argument with Pitafi a few days back. “My children are asking Bilawal for justice.”

“I am being stopped from doing my work, my family was forcing me to staying indoors and give up politics after Pitafi’s remarks.