LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Punjab President Ejaz Chaudhry says the federal government should contact Interpol to bring the criminals back from abroad.

He said MQM chief Altaf Husain should also be brought back and presented before courts. He should also choose one nationality – either Pakistani or British.

Speaking to a delegation, led by Shaukat Bhatti from Hafizabad, on Wednesday, Mr Chaudhry said the PTI would not allow Mr Husain to demean the armed forces. The PTI wanted to see the Rangers’ operation in Karachi reaching its logical end, he added.

Mr Chaudhry also condemned the killing of two people by a mob as an aftermath of a suicide attack on Churches in Youhanabad.

He said the Punjab government could neither check terrorism nor the violence after the attack that led to the killing of five people. Condemning lynching of two bearded men, he said, a Muslim being close to a Church at the time of the attack did not make him a suspect.

He said protest was the democratic right of every Pakistani but people should not take law into their hands. He said it was police’s responsibility to maintain law and order. The Punjab police stood as a mere spectator during the whole affair.

PTI Punjab General Secretary Dr Yasmin Rashid said where were police when all the mayhem was taking place. Had the Punjab government taken strict action in Kot Radha Kishan incident, she said, the Youhanabad incident would never have happened. Everything happened, she said, represented mistrust on the state institutions. She said public trust in state institutions had been diminished due to the politicisation of the police and other institutions.

Information secretary Andleeb Abbas said the Punjab government kept failing in providing security and justice to all its people. She said what bigger failure could there be than the fact that like in Karachi, the government had to call Rangers to control the situation.

She said human lives must be valued irrespective of their religion. She demanded that the formation of JIT be not of the same people, who were responsible for this lax and criminal negligence.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2015

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