KARACHI, May 15: PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari has said that the face of so-called enlightened moderation stands blackened with the latest attack on human rights activists in Lahore on Saturday. In a statement issued here on Sunday, Asif Ali Zardari said after watching the horrible treatment to country’s respected HRCP leaders Asma Jehangir, Iqbal Haider and Hina Jillani, it was imperative that the government should be sent packed before it inflicted more daubs on the international image of the country.

Asif Zardari said that the way the women were treated on Lahore streets had exposed the real face of the government beyond any doubts that the liberal forces were being targeted with special purposes. It had been the history that whenever a government failed to deliver and sensed its imminent downfall it resorted to naked form of state terrorism as displayed in Lahore, he contended.

The PPP leader said that it was ironic that those Pakistanis, who were revered and respected the world over, were being treated ruthlessly by the government. “The sacrifices given by HRCP chief Asma Jehangir for democracy and human rights would not go in vein,” he added.

He asked the Supreme Court and international human rights bodies to play their role and hold probe into the Lahore incident as country’s majority was being threatened by extremist approach of government. —PPI