KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Sunday lashed out at Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal for making “baseless claims” regarding killing of protesters outside the former’s residence only to “hide his incompetence”.

“Is he [Mr Iqbal] not the same person who earlier said he would get the [Islamabad] sit-in protesters cleared within three hours [but is] now putting the burden of the [botched] operation on the judiciary,” a private news channels quoted the former interior minister as saying.

Mr Iqbal respo­nded in the same tone as he questioned “in how many days Nisar had managed to end the sit-in staged by the Pak­i­stan Tehreek-i-Insaf when he was holding the post,” according to dawn.com.

The criticism from Chaudhry Nisar came against the backdrop of Mr Iqbal’s statement that there were no casualties during the operation, and the deaths were reported in incidents that took place after the operation was called off, when the mob started attacking private properties, including the residence of the former interior minister.

The PML-N leader, known as the most mercurial member of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s team, made it clear that no one was killed, or even injured, at his house when it came under an attack by protesters on Saturday.

He said it was very unfortunate that the country had got an “irresponsible and ignorant” man as the interior minister.

He said that the office of Mr Iqbal required him to stand by the administration instead of making baseless and illogical statements.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2017