Maryam Lashes Out At Imran for Calling Hazara Protesters ‘Blackmailers’
KARACHI: PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz Sharif has expressed outrage and has rebuked Imran Khan for calling the aggrieved Hazara Protesters Blackmailers and challenged him to tell the nation the real reason why he did not perform his duty of visiting and consoling them.
Talking to media at PML-N leader Miftah Ismail’s residence in Karachi, Maryam said she was shocked by the level of apathy, indifference, insensitivity, contempt and cruelty of Imran’s statement. She said, by saying that he would go the minute the protesters bury the martyred victims, Imran has also exposed the earlier lie that his visit was delayed due to security reasons. Would the security threat vanish with burial of the martyrs?, she questioned.
The PMLN Vice President said the families of the victims had been protesting in freezing cold at the provincial capital’s Western Bypass, for days, while the selected Prime Minister was busy having him fan boy moment meeting cast and crew of Turkish Drama Serials.
“The nation is curious about what’s stopping Imran from going to Quetta. Is it his giant ego, pharaonic attitude and stubbornness or his extreme cowardice which everyone is aware of now. If this is one of his superstitions, he should come out with it and tell the people he so arrogantly, heartnessly and cruelly rules” she lambasted.
The PML-N leader explained that she and those who accompanied her to Quetta did not get the security clearance either but they did not let it get in the way of them reaching out to the Hazara community at a time when it was desperately needed.
She said she was rattled by the scenes she witnessed yesterday at the protest site in Quetta and felt the pain of the Hazara community
‘”What could we do but comfort and console? The Miners earned their livelihoods risking their lives hundreds of feet underground, were brutally and mercilessly butchered in ways that is too traumatic to even state. It’s an unfathomable human tragedy. Some of the affected women said there was no man left in their house now to even shoulder the coffins”, she told the media.
She said, the Hazara community has pinned its hopes on a man who has no heart, no regard, no respect for anything or anyone’s feelings.
“The failure of the government led to the terrorist incident and the shameless Imran Khan, instead of apologising for his failure had the audacity of calling them blackmailers is. They are not asking Imran Khan for anything but just a gesture of compassion so that they would know that the state owns them, their loss and their grief”, she said.
Maryam said Imran Khan is fighting with the bereaved and the oppressed. It was not just his responsibility to visit them but his duty, she added, saying the premier had to answer not only to the people but also to God.
The PMLN Vice President begged the Hazara community not to wait for Imran’s visit, to bury their loved ones and hand them over to Allah.
Maryam also slammed the PTI criticism of calling PMLN and PPP leadership’s visit to Quetta ‘Politics’.
“Why did they demonise the word ‘Politics’ like this? It is because that’s what politics is to them – opportunism, self-catering and self-enriching. They do not know that politics is the name of serving the nation above any beyond all self interest “, she said.
