Daily Times

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Friday once again hit out at Prime Minister Imran Khan for not having visited the Shia Hazaras protesting the killing of coal miners in the Mach area so far, and for suggesting they were “blackmailing” the premier.

Speaking at a press conference in Karachi, she said Prime Minister Imran had admitted that he was not going to Quetta “not because of a security threat but ego [and] his stubbornness”.

“The nation wants to know what prevented you from going and putting your hand on their heads. If this was due to obedience, then the nation wants to know is obedience more important than the people’s lives?” she said. “If this is superstition then tell the nation so [it] knows the lives of 220 million people are not in the hands of any person or government but decided through superstition… If this is insensitivity and ruthlessness then tell the nation so we know not to look towards you in crisis and [know that] you won’t come and call innocents blackmailers,” the PML-N leader added. Terming the premier’s remarks “devoid of humanity”, Maryam said it was a “great failure” on part of the government that the Hazaras who were a vulnerable population and had been repeatedly targeted in the past again became victim of a terrorism incident. She said the relatives of the slain miners were sitting in sub-zero temperatures along with their coffins for the past six days, waiting for the “callous” leader. “When I asked them what your demands are, they said we have no demands, we only want the [prime minister] to come here and cover our wounds and reassure us that such events won’t happen again.”

Meanwhile, PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman said that Prime Minister Imran Khan thinks that people asking him to fulfil their just demands are blackmailing him. Reacting to the primer’s speech, the PPP leader said that the “egoistic” and “ruthless” prime minister has set the worst example. Slamming PM Imran Khan, Rehman said that his statement was “an insult to corpses of the slain coal miners.” “He has proved that he is not only incompetent but also ruthless.”

She said the mourner had been calling the country’s prime minister and not Imran Khan as an individual. Also, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Senator Sirajul Haq participated in the sit-in of Hazara community in Quetta on Friday and expressed regret over the attitude of the federal government for not listening to the demands of the families of Mach victims. Talking to the participants, he said the prime minister proved himself stubborn and a ruler who felt no pain for the sufferings of the masses. He reminded the prime minister that he (Imran Khan) had participated in the sit-in of the community as PTI chairman and then he had declared the then government as the killer, holding it responsible for the terror incident.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz responded to criticism by the opposition over the use of the word “blackmail” by Prime Minister Imran Khan, as he spoke about the sit-in in Quetta by the Hazara community.

Faraz said, “The people who see a tragedy like this one as an opportunity for political point scoring are the ones who do not have any humanity left in them.”