ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) the largest and main opposition party in the Parliament has strongly condemned Shahbaz Sharif's Punjab government for overreacting to a simple situation and creating an atmosphere of siege throughout province causing miseries to the ordinary people, commuters and daily wage earners.

"PPP is shocked over the manner in which Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has overreacted to call by Dr Tahirul Qadri to pay homage today to those who had recently lost their lives during the Model Town incident due to unwise, thoughtless and arrogant police action", PPP's information secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira said in a statement.

Kaira said Qadri may be a demagogue deserving no sympathy whatsoever but it makes no sense to punish the ordinary people for what the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief may be doing.

"Roads in major provincial cities have been blocked by placing containers, patients have been dying on roadsides due to lack of access to hospitals.

Gas stations and shops of daily food items are shut and public and private transport has come to a standstill.

It is beyond comprehension as to why the provincial government has overreacted," said Kaira adding that "It achieved nothing but exposed the provincial government's sense of fear, paranoia and sheer desperation."

The PPP leader said that the government of Shahbaz Sharif has miserably failed in tackling the situation in Lahore and was trying to kill a fly with a cannon.

He added that that "The chief minister has been unmindful of the huge social and human collateral damage which he inflicted on the hapless citizens and daily wage earners."

The PPP demanded that provincial government should immediately lift the blockades faced by the province's ordinary people and deal with Qadri in ways that are ingenious and non violent.