Lahore: The Shia minority has accused Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party of being “pro-Taliban” and having a “soft corner” for the banned group.
A Tehrik-e-Insaf team led by Ejaz Chaudhry, head of the party’s Punjab chapter, faced embarrassment on Thursday evening when Shias protesting a recent bomb attack on the minority sect refused to allow them to enter the venue of their demonstration for having a “soft corner” for the Taliban.
A large number of people, including women and children, had camped outside the Governor’s House here to protest the death of 28 pilgrims in the attack on a bus in Balochistan on Tuesday.
They ended their two-day sit-in following an assurance by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan that “a targeted operation will be launched against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, believed to be involved in the attacks on the Shia minority”.
When the Tehrik-e-Insaf delegation reached the protest, the participants of the sit-in asked them to leave, saying they “don’t need sympathy from those who support the Taliban”. Some protesters even pushed them out of the area.
The embarrassed Tehrik-e-Insaf workers had to leave the venue. A party leader told PTI that cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan had expressed his annoyance with the team for visiting the protesters without his approval. Khan’s stance on holding talks with the Taliban and his party’s blockade of NATO supply routes in Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, where it is in power, has earned the Tehrik-e-Insaf a lot of criticism from liberals. Pakistan People’s Party leader Bilawal Bhutto recently called Khan a “coward” for having a “soft corner” for the Taliban. (PTI)
