HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) information secretary Senator Maula Bux Chandio on Thursday cautioned Prime Minister Imran Khan against pursuing “politics of vendetta” lest he face the same kind of treatment being meted out to his opponents today.

Speaking at a press conference at his residence, Mr Chandio said Mr Khan must change his attitude towards his political opponents. He compared such treatment with that witnessed in the military regimes of General Ziaul Haq and General Pervez Musharraf and reminded PM Imran Khan that “nature takes its own course”. He said people were aware of the consequences of victimisation.

He said PPP was aware of difficulties being faced by [the party’s co-chairman MNA] Asif Ali Zardari and his close associates. He said PPP also understood that [party chairman] Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was being implicated in cases he had nothing to do with.

Alluding to ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), he said that those who gave [slain prime minister] Benazir Bhutto trouble must have shown some signs of remorse. “Since they themselves are now in trouble, they must have felt the pain [felt by] Benazir Bhutto”, he said.

History repeats itself; PML-N leaders facing what they had done to Benazir, he reminds Imran Khan

He recalled that Benazir Bhutto used to wait outside prisons and shuttle between one city to another with her children. “Now her daughter is being made to wait outside prisons for several hours despite having permission to meet her father. She is denied a meeting with her father,” he lamented.

Mr Chandio said PPP did not approve of the act that Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz, should wait outside prisons to see her father. “But this is how history repeats itself,” he remarked. “You [PTI] should also be ready for it,” he remarked.

The senior PPP leader was of the view that since the PTI government had nothing to show as performance, it was doing all this. The PM, he noted, was least concerned about price hike and power loadshedding.

Referring to Federal Information Adviser Firdaus Ashiq Awan’s criticism of opposition’s political leaders, including Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz, he advised the PM’s aide to desist from ridiculing them, saying: “Ms Awan’s new leader will flee one day”.

Mr Chandio noted that the prime minister had been discussing Kashmir in his speeches but turned up late by three hours to attend the recent joint session of parliament.

He alleged that the PM had mentally withdrawn on the Kashmir case. “Now people want to see what he is going to do in the wake of his address to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly [on Aug 14], he said.

He said that he personally disliked a few turncoats because they were contaminating political culture. “These five-six individuals are not only enemies of democracy but also enemies of politics ... we [political parties] should close our door on them permanently”, he said.

Mr Chandio said: “Kashmir is a matter of life and death for the institutions, people and political parties of Pakistan. People will stand with their institutions for the country’s integrity”.

He appreciated the army chief’s recent categorical statement on Kashmir.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2019