Controversy brews: Will not push for criminal charges against hecklers, says Ahsan Iqbal

KARACHI: Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said that he will not be pushing for criminal charges against the group that heckled him at a restaurant on Friday since women and children were involved in the incident.

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, the minister said that he had instead chosen to “leave the matter in the people’s court”, adding that PTI Chairman Imran Khan had introduced a “culture of hatred” in the country. During the presser, the minister also spoke about the “chor campaign” being run by Imran Khan, saying that “he [Imran Khan] could not even prove a single allegation during the four years he was in power”.

A video that went viral on Friday had shown Ahsan Iqbal being heckled by a group of alleged PTI supporters -- presumably a family, including women and children -- at a fast-food chain at the Bhera stopover on the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway. Chanting ‘chor, chor’, the group is seen surrounding the minister as he attempts to place an order at the restaurant counter.

After the incident, Ahsan Iqbal had taken to Twitter, saying that a PTI family that “seemed to see itself as elite” chanted slogans at him instead of choosing dialogue. The minister blamed their behaviour on the rhetoric former prime minister Imran Khan has been using. “The ignorance and madness he [Imran Khan] exhibits himself, he is creating followers in the same mould too”.

The incident has been widely condemned by politicians from the coalition government as well as journalists and social media regulars, with journalist Matiullah Jan asking in a tweet: “If Imran Khan, like Ahsan Iqbal, came to public places without security, what slogans would people chant against him? Have PTI people ever thought [of this]?”

Cautioning against such hatred in society, journalist Asma Shirazi too tweeted a condemnation, saying that everything from “abuse to the bullet” has been used and that in the end “no one will be spared [such hatred].”

PPP’s Mustafa Nawaz Khokar said: “Much has been said and written about the polarization in our society and its negative outcomes but more than often it is the workers or sympathizers of one particular political party who seem to cross the line every time, in their self belief of piety and their holier-than-thou attitude. Their leadership’s silence and refusal to outright condemn this is tantamount to tacit approval”.

The PTI, however, has stuck to a single narrative: that this is public sentiment against the corruption of the ‘imported government’.

Former PTI minister Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet after the incident called Ahsan Iqbal a “liar” and asked him to “start wearing a burqa in public”, while former PTI minister Shireen Mazari claimed that the hecklers did not necessarily have to be PTI followers but “ordinary citizens [who are] are fed up & angry”, adding that “as for the political atmosphere being vitiated, the imported government and handlers have already done the needful”.

Talking to The News, Ahsan Iqbal said that to him “hate and extremism is a far bigger problem for us than the economy. We can fix inflation in a few months but when it comes to such hate that will take decades to undo. As I said in my presser too, this is a personal issue for me. I have been a hate victim; I still carry a bullet from a hate crime”.

Iqbal added that: “In a pluralist society there is no space to see things in just black and white. A democracy is supposed to be the sum total of people’s experiences but Khan has been trying to inject the idea that -- other than him all -- else is black. This is what fascists do”.

Post Ahsan Iqbal’s press conference, PTI Shehbaz Gill too held a press conference, calling Ahsan Iqbal a fake professor and adding a slew of accusations regarding Iqbal’s past as an IJI politician.

Calling the minister the “real producer” of “Maryam Nawaz’s fake video factory” and the “mastermind” behind character-assassination campaigns by the PML-N, Gill said that Ahsan Iqbal was the one who had distributed obscene photos of the late Benazir Bhutto in the 80s.

During the presser, Shahbaz Gill asked Ahsan Iqbal whether Imran Khan was responsible for Gullu Butt’s behaviour. “The way you killed women and children, was that Imran Khan’s training? What you did on May 25, was that due to Imran Khan’s training?”

Turning to Maryam Nawaz, Gill said that some time back she used to say that if Imran Khan ventured out in public, he should wear a helmet -- so was she too not instigating the people. “Was she trained by Imran Khan?” Gill went on to call Ahsan Iqbal a hypocrite for asking people to reduce their tea intake while ordering imported coffee at a restaurant himself.

The post ‘vote of no confidence’ political landscape has seen a spate of public heckling, jeering and even physical assault targeting PDM politicians, and PTI dissidents. In April, during Iftar at Marriott in Islamabad, comments alleged to have been made by a PTI supporter led to a brawl between the unidentified man and dissident PTI parliamentarian Noor Alam, the PPP’s Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Nadeem Afzal Chan, and Faisal Karim Kundi. The same month saw the widely condemned Masjid-e-Nabvi incident during which alleged PTI supporters were captured on video using unacceptable language and behaviour towards the PML-N’s Marriyum Aurangzeb and the JWP’s Shahzain Bugt -- not stopping at heckling but also shouting misogynist abuse at Ms Aurangzeb and pulling Bugti’s hair.

In retaliation, the same night Qasim Suri was attacked by a mob of alleged Shahzain Bugti supporters as he sat in a restaurant in Islamabad.

In March this year, Imran Khan had warned dissenting members of the PTI: “You will not be able to attend public gatherings ...no one will marry your children and they will be ridiculed in society”.