No direct firing on protesters, no fatalities: Tarar

ISLAMABAD: Information and Broadcasting Minister Attaullah Tarar categorically said on Thursday that no direct firing was done by the law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activists during their march on Islamabad.

Talking to the foreign media, along with Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Tarar said there were no fatalities in the law-enforcement agencies’ operation to flush out the protesters near D Chowk. He said there was a clear policy of the government that no direct firing would be done on protesters. The minister said there were no fatalities in the operation and both major hospitals of the Capital, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and Polyclinic, had issued statements that no bodies were brought there.

Besides, the Ministry of National Health Services also issued a statement denying PTI’s claims that its workers were killed in security forces’ firing.

The minister stated that a list circulating on social media regarding the death of protesters was fake. He said the federal capital was besieged for the past several days by miscreants of a political party and this was not the first time they had done so.

Tarar said the PTI activists wanted to disrupt peace in Islamabad. He said the Belarusian president and his delegation was present in the Red Zone when the PTI protesters besieged the capital. He said the protesters had modern weapons, tear-gas shells, stones and slingshots with them and they were targeting the LEAs personnel.

He told the foreign media that Islamabad High Court had ordered that there would be no protest of any kind, 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 stage protest at Sangjani near the capital where they could protest peacefully, but they rejected the offer as peaceful protest was not their intention.”

He said two days ago, a footage was released in which professionals among the protesters could be seen firing, using weapons, tear-gas shells and pellet guns. Tarar said four rangers and two police personnel were martyred by miscreant attacks. He asked on whose hands the blood of these martyrs could be found. He said the security forces performed their duty and established peace in the federal capital.

The minister lamented that a false narrative was created on social media claiming that Rangers were martyred by their own people. He told the media that the culprit involved in hit-and-run incident had been identified, who belonged to the Abbottabad city.

“We arrested 37 Afghan criminals during the PTI protest. Afghanistan is our friendly country. The question arises what the Afghan citizens were doing in the protest of a political party in Islamabad? Are they allowed to do so?” he asked and added that a large-scale operation was conducted from 2013 to 2017, peace was restored to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh metropolis Karachi and incidents of terrorism decreased in the entire country. But when the PTI was brought into power in 2018, the PTI founder brought back the Taliban.

He claimed the PTI was the party that always used religion as a tool. Referring to a recent statement of spouse of Imran Khan, he asked what the purpose was of making a statement against Saudi Arabia. He said their objective was to play with the religious sentiments of the people of the country and exploit religion for their political purposes.

Replying to questions of the media, he said the PTI was suffering from internal differences as many top leaders of the party, including Atif Khan, Shehram Tarakai, Asad Qaiser, Hamad Azhar and Sheikh Waqas Akram, were not present.

He said there was a clear rift between Aleema Khan and Bushra Bibi who intended to stage a coup in the party. He remarked that the PTI had the habit of putting its flag on the bodies of ordinary citizens and declare them as its workers.