LAHORE, July 7: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan has condemned US drone strike in North Waziristan, which killed 24 people.

He said the latest drone attack spoke volumes for the so-called “close working partnership” between Pakistan and the US in the ongoing war.

The rulers reopened Nato supply routes against strong sentiments of the people and bypassed parliamentary resolutions to appease the US, he said in a statement here.

The US on the other hand had reciprocated by continuous drone strikes, the last of which killed 24 people, he regretted. He said continuing drone assaults were in clear violation of international laws as there was complete censorship in the tribal areas and resultantly no (independent) way to ascertain identities of those killed in these strikes.

He demanded the government disclose identification details of the casualties so that one knew how many women, children and ordinary civilians were killed. The fact that their identities were not disclosed cast serious doubts on claims that those killed in the strikes were militants.

The PTI leader held the Pakistan government equally responsible for the “indiscriminate elimination” of its citizens as it consciously avoided disclosing identification details of those killed in the US drone strikes.

“Our rulers are blindly supporting the US claims of high precision drone strikes and minimum collateral damage when they are actually aware of the details of Pakistani civilian casualties in the tribal areas.”

Rejecting claims that the strikes were primarily carried out against foreign militants, Mr Khan stated that statistics from various independent organisations suggested that both the US and Pakistan were grossly under-reporting civilian casualties.