ISLAMABAD, July 18: Questioning the government's claim that Tuesday's bomb blast in Islamabad was a suicide attack, the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Wednesday demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.
Speaking at a news conference after visiting the hospital to enquire after the health of the injured party workers, senior PPP leaders and parliamentarians said the government should admit its failure in protecting the lives of the people and resign immediately in the best national interest.
Opposition Leader in Senate Raza Rabbani, PPP Secretary-General Raja Pervez Ashraf, Punjab PPP President Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Provincial Secretary-General Ghulam Abbas, Provincial Information Secretary Farzana Raja, former senator Farhatullah Babar, Senator Enver Baig and MNA Zamarrud Khan attended the press conference.
PPP Punjab president Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the party workers were targeted when they were preparing to receive the chief justice. He said eight workers of the PPP had been killed and over 60 injured in the bomb blast. The government has declared it a suicide attack, but circumstances indicated something else, the PPP leader claimed, without elaborating.
If it was a suicide attack, where was the head of the suicide bomber? he asked.
Raza Rabbani said there was a “complete security breakdown” in the country and the government had failed to protect the life and property of the people.
He reiterated the party’s demand for setting up a neutral caretaker government to hold free and fair elections in the country under an independent and powerful election commission.
He said that only a true representative government of the people could deal with such a complex issue. Raja Pervez Ashraf said that no one was safe in the country and attacks were being carried out against the president, the prime minister, corps commander, security personnel and now political leaders and workers.
He said the country’s federation was at stake due to policies of the present regime.
Mr Rabbani claimed that the attack had nothing to do with the statement of PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto in which she had supported the military operation against the Lal Masjid brigade.
He said the PPP’s policy regarding terrorism was very old, adding that the party had not changed its position after the 9/11 incident. He said it seemed that Tuesday’s attack was carried out to target the chief justice.
In response to another query, Mr Rabbani said that President Gen Pervez Musharraf had played his innings and now the time had come to hand over power to real representatives of the people.
He said the PPP believed that the use of force was not the only solution to all problems and there was a need to find out a political solution as well.
