PESHAWAR: QaumiWatan Party asked Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to apologise for the crackdown on Pakhtuns by his government and announced to launch a protest campaign if the ethnic-based operation was not stopped forthwith.
This was announced by QWP’s woman MPA MerajHumayun Khan while speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club. She asked the Punjab chief minister to clean his own province of terrorists instead of blaming others. She said that the credit went to Pakhtuns who had offered matchless sacrifices for the protection of the country in the fight against terrorism.
Flanked by former MPA NasreenKhattak, she said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had failed to take notice of this alarming situation as the crackdown was still continuing.
MsHumayun said that the terrorists so far arrested in Punjab did not include a single Pakhtun, but during the operation innocent people were rounded up just to harass the poor labourers so as to force them leave the province. She said that some known people were distributing pamphlets and handbills in Punjab against Pakhtuns, but the provincial government had turned a blind eye towards them and no one was arrested so far in this regard.
“We are Pakistanis and have the right to go anywhere in the country and in case the ongoing anti-Pakhtun campaign is not stopped forthwith then nobody would be able to control the hatred,” she feared.
The QWP leader said that the prime minister and Punjab CM should seek an apology over their failure to stop the distribution of derogatory stuff and remove the baseless impression about Pakhtuns. She said that all the citizens had equal rights and there were no restrictions on their movement. She said that if such acts continued the people belonging to various provinces would be unable to meet each others.
The MPA said that her party was determined to start protest demonstrations against victimisation of Pakhtuns as they being citizens of the country had to visit different provinces in search of jobs, earning livelihood and to meet their relatives, which did not mean that they had any relation with anti-state elements.
The QWP leadership, she said, had been receiving complaints against the highhandedness of Punjab police and the party was considering several options to resolve the issue. She also expressed her party’s concern over the growing differences between Kabul and Islamabad and urged them to work jointly for curbing terrorism in the region.
