ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan told the Senate Friday that the federal cabinet had advised Prime Minister Imran Khan to visit Quetta and he would go there any time.
Ending the discussion on the opposition agenda regarding the unprecedented crackdown on political workers, the minister argued that the opposition might speak in Parliament about civilian differences or civil-military imbalances but why talk like ‘cutting the necks of soldiers and generals’.
Some opposition leaders have asked why the foreign funding case has not progressed even though six years have passed.
Ali Muhammad said JUI-F chairman Fazlur Rehman was patriotic but voices like that were raised in his party which must have been silenced there and then but unfortunately it was not done. He said a former prime minister and a “ferari” from the Panama case were sitting in a foreign country asking people to become a barrier to the armed forces, who risk their lives every day. When the former PM called out the commander’s name and criticized him, he slandered his own country’s armed forces, he said.
“You are defaming the armed forces. If you have enough courage you will not give him an extension and launch a movement and agitation here, ”he said referring to Nawaz Sharif. “When we attack each other in this way, we further widen the fault line where the enemy is already working under fifth generation warfare,” he stressed.
He emphasized that Parliament is the right forum for political and electoral reforms and invited the opposition to be part of the process.
PkMAP Senator Usman Kakar called for the release of political workers and the withdrawal of what he called the sham cases against them, saying that exercising one’s democratic and political rights is a fundamental right.
Referring to the PDM meeting and the government’s steps in this connection, he said there are laws of the jungle in the country and nobody cares about them, who take guns in their hands and force peaceful political workers to be forced. This, he said, brought a bad name to Pakistan and the Parliament.
Attaur Rehman from JUI-F said the chosen ‘prime minister’ would not go to Quetta because he was not given the signal, because he himself was a puppet. He urged the Hazara community to bury the martyrs.
DPR Leader Dr. Shahzad Waseem said criticizing the government and engaging in agitation were the right of the opposition, but there were certain red lines with respect to the state and its institutions, which needed to be respected, because these violations could weaken the state.
He said an unprecedented crackdown was carried out by them, which introduced the Dalai camp and founded the FSF and wrote the black chapter of the Model Town shootings when even women were shot in their faces and elderly people were dragged on the streets and beaten black and blue.
Opposition leader Raja Muhammad Zafarul Haq said hundreds of workers faced cases and arrests were also made. He said a few days before the PDM meeting, lists were shared with the police station and arrests were made and violence was used against political workers.
He claimed that the contradictions of the government every day cost the country and went on to say that if Hitler had adopted this approach, he would not fail.
He alleges that accountability is one-sided and against the opposition while the foreign funding case has not progressed in six years.
“The negative attitude of the head of government should be condemned, because every time a natural disaster occurs in Balochistan, the government and government are indifferent and this is evident from the Machh tragedy,” said Tahir Bizenjo of the National Party.
