Daily Times

KARACHI: Imran Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has called upon the federal government to hold talks with the protesting employees of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to end the prevailing crisis at the national flag carrier.

Talking to newsmen during his visit to the PIA Headquarters in Karachi on Saturday, Khan expressed solidarity with the protesting employees. He urged the government to hold serious negotiations with the protesters to end the standoff that had added to the miseries of the passengers. He asked the government to repeal the controversial Essential Services Act of 1952, a bone of contention between the government and the PIA employees. “Employees see privatisation as a threat to the future of their children, but rulers are unable to understand because they grew up in the lap of a dictator,” he said.

Condemning the killing of two PIA employees in a firing incident in Karachi earlier this week, Khan urged the government to set up a judicial commission to probe the matter. He called on the government to immediately resume talks with the protesters who were willing to come to the dialogue table. He assured the PIA employees that he would stand by them.

Speaking at a protest demonstration earlier in the day, Sohail Balcoh, head of the Joint Action Committee of the PIA, praised the PTI chief for his support. “We do not want to politicise our movement, but we want the government to heed to our demands,” he said, asking all political parties to back the protesting PIA employees. He said that Muhammad Zubair, head of the Privatisation Commission and leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), held talks with the Joint Action Committee without any mandate. He said that such talks were waste of time.

Separately, the PTI chairman criticised the federal government for its economic policies. Speaking to media persons at his Bani Gala residence in Islamabad before leaving for Karachi, Khan said that he would present a charter of demands during his protest against the federal government’s plan to privatise the PIA.

The PTI chief said that he would sit with the protesting employees of the national airline and devise a strategy for resolution of the crisis. In other countries, he said, taxes were collected from the rich and spent on the poor, but the situation was totally different in Pakistan. About 98 per cent of tax was being collected on diesel and it was directly affecting the common people, especially farmers and small traders, he added.

“The federal government has borrowed billions of rupees for the Orange Line project, but it is not providing clean drinking water to people,” Khan said. The PTI chairman said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had made China-Pakistan Economic Corridor controversial by allowing his nephew Hamza Shahbaz and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to visit China.