ISLAMABAD: Information and Broadcasting Minister Attaullah Tarar on Thursday clearly stated that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers were directly targeted by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) during the Islamabad march. No firing was done.
Talking to foreign media along with Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal, Tarar said that there was no loss of life in the operation of the law enforcement agencies to remove the protesters near D Chowk. He said that the government has a clear policy that direct firing will not be done on the protesters. The minister said there was no loss of life in the operation and both major hospitals in the capital, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and the Polyclinic, issued statements that no bodies were brought there.
Apart from this, the Ministry of National Health also issued a statement denying PTI’s claim that its workers were killed in firing by security forces.
The minister said that the list circulating on social media regarding the death of protesters is fake. He said that the federal capital has been besieged by miscreants of a political party for the past several days and this is not the first time that they have done so.
Tarr said that PTI workers wanted to disturb the peace of Islamabad. He said that the Belarusian president and his delegation were in the red zone when PTI protesters besieged the capital. He said that the protesters had modern weapons, tear gas shells, stones and bullets and were targeting the LEA personnel.
While talking to the foreign media, he said that the Islamabad High Court had ordered that no protest would be held, but they openly violated the court orders. The protesters violated the red zone and tried to wreak havoc with the country when the economy was doing well.
“We offered them to protest in Sangjani near the capital where they can protest peacefully, but they rejected the offer because peaceful protest was not their intention.”
He said that a footage was released two days ago in which professionals from the protestors can be seen firing, using weapons, tear gas shells and pellet guns. Tarar said that four Rangers and two policemen were martyred in the miscreant attacks. He asked that on whose hands is the blood of these martyrs? He said that the security forces did their duty and established peace in the federal capital.
The minister lamented that a false narrative was created on social media claiming that the Rangers were martyred by their own people. He told the media that the criminal involved in the hit and run incident has been identified and belongs to Abbottabad city.
We arrested 37 Afghan criminals during the PTI protest. Afghanistan is our friendly country. The question arises, what were the Afghan citizens doing in the protest of a political party in Islamabad? Are they allowed to do this?” he questioned and added that from 2013 to 2017, a large-scale operation was carried out, peace was restored in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi in Sindh and incidents of terrorism decreased across the country. But when PTI was brought to power in 2018, PTI founder brought back Taliban.
He claimed that PTI was a party which always used religion as a tool. Referring to the recent statement of Imran Khan’s wife, he said that what was the purpose of making a statement against Saudi Arabia? He said that their aim is to play with the religious sentiments of the people of the country and exploit religion for their political purposes.
Answering questions from the media, he said that PTI was suffering from internal differences as several top party leaders including Atif Khan, Shahram Tarkai, Asad Qaiser, Hammad Azhar and Sheikh Waqas Akram were not present.
He said that there is a clear rift between Aleema Khan and Bushra Bibi who was planning a coup in the party. He remarked that PTI has a habit of flagging dead bodies of common citizens and declaring them as its workers.