Daily Times

Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that the people’s right to life supersedes the opposition’s right to protest, and the government will take action against the participants of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) march if the rights of people are jeopardised.

“The government will not let any group take people hostage,” Firdous said while addressing a press briefing in Sialkot on Sunday.

JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman said the ‘Azadi March’ caravan would enter Islamabad on October 31, and that it was the right of people to protest against a government that has failed to deliver.

Firdous, in Sunday’s conference, termed the JUI-F march an attempt to supplement Indian efforts to push the country into the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist.

She said the prime minister’s economic policies were bearing fruits, as the imports of the country had decreased, while exports increased.

She said that at a time when the international monetary institutions were appreciating the government’s economic policies and the country’s positive economic indicators, some “political orphans want to jam these indicators”.

She said that their aim was to “sabotage the prime minister’s efforts to turn around the prevailing economic situation”.

“The prime minister is busy in portraying an environment conducive to investment in Pakistan,” she said, adding that Chinese investors had pledged to invest $5 billion in the country’s economic zones during the next four years.

Firdous vowed that all the tactics employed by the opposition would fail. “On one hand India is attacking our unarmed citizens at the border and exploiting Kashmiri people while holding them hostage [in the occupied territory], and on the other our foolish political leaders are unable to realise the situation being faced by Pakistan,” she regretted. The government spokesperson said that the positive indicators of the economy had to be maintained over the next three months and a soft image of Pakistan needed to be promoted. She expressed dismay over the fact that this was not being understood by some. “On one hand the British royal couple visited Pakistan and is projecting the real, enlightened, moderate and progressive image of Pakistan before the world, while on the other hand a group, consisting of a handful of people, while using the religious card, wants to push the people into unrest and discord.”

She said that the aforementioned group was drawing the attention of the media to a militia, which itself was a negation to the constitution of Pakistan and its Article 256. While defining a militia, she said it was an organised, uniformed and equipped outfit and had an objective. She went on to say that Fazl had planned to charge on Islamabad with the help of a militia and the act was tantamount to challenging the writ of the state.

She said it should serve as an eye opener for the people that at a time when India was trying to hatch conspiracies to isolate Pakistan, a militia in the country, which “is uniformed, trained and equipped” was projected favourably in the media. “The nation wants to know whose narrative this is. This is a blow to the soft image of Pakistan,” she said. “The nation wants to know why the offspring of those fathers who had resisted the establishment of Pakistan want to create obstacles in the process of Pakistan’s stability,” she continued. She further said that some “VIP prisoners” were moving the strings of Fazl.