Maryam Nawaz criticizes PM Imran for calling Hazara protest ‘blackmail’

KARACHI: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has criticized Prime Minister Imran Khan for calling the Hazara community’s protest and their demand for his arrival as blackmail.

Talking to media in Karachi today, Maryam Nawaz said that she was forced to respond to the Prime Ministers’ recent statement about the ongoing Quetta protest. Maryam Nawaz further said PM Imran had admitted today that he was not going to Quetta, not because of a security threat but his ego.

She described the painful scenes she witnessed on Thursday when she visited the Hazara protest camp outside Quetta, describing it as “a scene like Karbala”. she did not intend to do a press conference and was in Karachi only for a transit flight, the PML-N leader said.

نائب صدر مسلم لیگ ن مریم نواز شریف کی پارٹی رہنماؤں کے ہمراہ کراچی میں پریس کانفرنس https://t.co/i72i5i64WL

— PMLN (@pmln_org) January 8, 2021

Terming PM’s remarks devoid of humanity”, Maryam said it was a great failure on the part of the government that the Hazaras who were a vulnerable population and had been repeatedly targeted in the past again became victim to a terrorism incident.

The relatives of the slain miners were sitting in sub-zero temperatures along with their coffins for the past six days, waiting for the “callous” leader, she said.

“They are not demanding inheritance from you or asking to resurrect the dead or demanding a long list. They only wanted you to come and give a hand of support so they could bury their dead,” she added.

“If this is superstition then tell the nation so it knows the lives of 220 million people are not in the hands of any person or government but decided through superstition”, she said.

On January 3, armed men slit the throats of 11 miners in a residential compound near a mine site in Balochistan’s Mach coalfield area, filming the entire incident and later posting it online. The gruesome attack was claimed by the militant Islamic State group.

Since then, thousands of Hazaras have staged a protest along with coffins containing the miners’ bodies in the western bypass area in Quetta, while members of the community have also held protests in other cities across the country.

Braving the biting cold, the mourners, including women and children, have refused to leave or lay the miners’ bodies to rest until Prime Minister Imran visits them and the killers are brought to justice.

Earlier today, PM Imran was widely criticized on social media when, amidst countrywide protests and rising political pressure, he suggested that the protesters were “blackmailing” him by refusing to bury their loved ones until he visits them.

Maryam said leaders develop “humility and fear of God” when they are given leadership roles, “but this statement I heard today shook my heart, this ruthlessness, negligence in your duties and so much pride. We can only pray for you”.

The PML-N leader said the government had refused to divulge to media why the prime minister could not visit Quetta, adding that if those reasons concerned security or threats to his life, then the opposition leaders too faced similar “threats”.

She alleged that Imran had “time to watch dramas and play with dogs and soak the sun in huge lawns but you don’t have time to partake in the pain and grief of the Hazara community”.

She again appealed to the Hazaras to bury their loved ones, telling them “the person you have kept hopes from has no heart in his chest.” Maryam Nawaz also directed the PML-N local leaders and workers across the country to participate in the protests with enthusiasm.