Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Advisor to the prime minister Dr Asif Kirmani on Sunday asked Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed to step down for his failure to protect life and property of the people.

“The AJK government has completely failed to deliver while corruption is rampant in all state departments. Therefore, Chaudhry Chaudhry Abdul Majeed should quit his office immediately,” he told a press conference.

Referring to a clash between the workers of PML-N and PPP, he said it was a condemnable incident which had taken a precious life. The AJK prime minister, he alleged, was in Nakyal and giving directions to his party activists during their clash with the PML-N workers. The incident, he said, showed ulterior motives of Chaudhry Abdul Majeed. He distorted the facts and conveyed wrong information to the PPP leadership. PPP leaders Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Bhutto should better depute some sane person to get correct information about the incident, he added.

Kirmani said the participants of PPP youth rally while passing through Nikyal Bazzar first chanted ‘indecent and vulgar’ slogans against the PML-N leadership and then started attacking shops and business outlets of PML-N workers. The PML-N workers reacted in self-defence and a clash erupted, resulting into loss of a precious life, which was highly regrettable and condemnable, he added.

The advisor alleged that the AJK police also abetted with the attackers. A crackdown was launched against the PML-N workers and their houses were raided by the police who also harassed their women and children, he said. The AJK police, he regretted, even did not register a first information report (FIR) on the complaint of PML-N workers who were either injured or their shops and property were damaged. “Rather an FIR was registered against the PML-N workers. The son of PML-N leader Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan was nominated though he was not present at the venue at that time,” he added.

Kirmani held the AJK prime minister fully responsible for the incident. “He (AJK PM) made a provocative speech as carried by a section of media on January 11 that the dead bodies of federal ministers would be sent back, if the federal government imposed its decisions on AJK,” he said. The PML-N workers, on the other hand, were peaceful as evident from peaceful holding of all of their conventions, he added.

Kirmani said that all the political parties should evolve a code of conduct to avoid giving negative statements and raising abusive slogans for peaceful conduct of polls in the AJK.