KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday claimed that two party workers died due to tear gas shelling by police in the run-up to the Nov 2 ‘lockdown’.

Mr Qureshi said the tear gas shells used by the government were expired, causing serious harm, according to a Dawn.com report. His words firmly put the blame for the deaths on the PML-N government when the protest was peaking.

However, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said the party had not suffered any loss of life in the protests. KP government spokesman Mushtaq Ghani confirmed, saying that no PTI worker had died as a result of shelling or due to the protests. “This was just a rumour,” he said.

Which leader is to be believed? Is there a lack of coordination in the party, or were there no deaths? Was Mr Qureshi provided false information?

Allegations have been raised that the PTI’s claim of deaths was a ruse to build pressure on the government and maintain momentum for the ‘lockdown’. In fact, conflicting reports about Mr Qureshi’s claim had emerged the very day of the announcement.

A PTI leader in Islamabad, anonymously speaking to Dawn.com, admitted the situation may have been ‘misread’.

“I think the situation was misread. As another person committed suicide, the party was mistakenly told a worker had died. That is not the case. There was so much happening. Emotions were high,” he said.

PTI’s original version

Peshawar Nazim Mohammad Asim Khan claimed that a party worker, Inamullah, died after sustaining injuries in the Swabi tear gas shelling.

PTI workers alleged that Inamullah was at the front of the convoy clashing with police, and was not treated in time because of a delay in the movement of ambulances due to roadblocks.

How did Inamullah die?

Press Information Department spokesperson Zaeem Farooq at a briefing on Tuesday denied Mr Qureshi’s claims that two party workers had died. He said Inam had died independent of the protest, and also claimed that Inamullah’s family asked Imran Khan to stop playing politics with the death of their family member.

In a follow-up, it was found that there was no record of a man who went by the name Inamullah, or was from his area of residence, in any of Peshawar’s three largest hospitals following tear gas shelling in Swabi.

Nawaz, a brother of the deceased, told a journalist that Inamullah had died at home at around 9:45pm the night before.

“He was on the charpoy. There was a rope around his neck... He strangled himself,” he said. “He did not go to the dharna.”

A Peshawar police official said a police team that visited Inamullah’s family home was told that the man was ill and had committed suicide. The family categorically denied that he had died in the protest.

A station house officer in Peshawar told DawnNews that a police team investigating the matter was told by Inam’s father, Amir Khan, that the 39-year-old man had an inherited illness. He added that the news of his son dying in the protests had disturbed his family a great deal.

A second death?

At the Tuesday briefing, Mr Farooq also stated that there was no second PTI worker who had died during the protest.

His claim is supported by the fact that the PTI has also not named and provided details of a second worker. With Mr Khattak’s announcement, it appears that the party has taken a U-turn on all claims about deaths.

Published in Dawn November 3rd, 2016