QUETTA: Former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association and human rights activist Asma Jahangir on Thursday said that she would defend Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai in a court of law if a petition was filed against him for his criticism of intelligence agencies in the wake of the Quetta suicide attack earlier this week.

Ms Jehangir was talking to journalists at the Balochistan High Court where she had gone to offer condolences to the lawyers’ community.

Mr Achakzai, she regretted, was being called a traitor for speaking the truth. She said that other lawyers would also appear before the court if a petition was filed against him.

“We have been receiving threats and today again terrorists struck in Quetta, detonating a bomb that could have hit a judge of the Federal Shariat Court, which indicates we are still the target,” she said.

She said that the anti-terror operation should start from the grass-root level to wipe out the menace of terrorism.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2016