LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz on Wednesday warned her political opponents against resorting to ‘violent protest’, declaring that she would be ‘ruthless’ if it dared to take the law into its hands on the pretext of politics.

“The opposition is in a state of mourning and they (PTI leaders) are not in their right frame of mind at the moment. They have a defeated mindset. They want to create anarchy, polarisation and instability.

“But let me tell them that if they try to create law and order situation on the pretext of doing politics, I will be ruthless. I have zero tolerance for them to create problems for public,” she asserted, while talking about handling of the opposition at a presser.

The CM faced strong criticism from the PTI for “torture” of its workers during what it called a peaceful protest in Lahore against the “massive rigging” in the February polls.

One of the protesters is said to be admitted to ICU because of alleged police torture.

“The defeated mind wants fight. They are going to criticise us on everything we do but I don’t care about criticism…I will do my job,” she said.

She also highlighted flaws in governance, admitting some “serious flaws in governance especially in the price control”.

Talking about the largest-ever ‘Ram­azan Nigahban Package’ in Punjab, she said it would provide the much-needed relief to deserving people during the holy month of Ramazan.

Owing to paucity of time, data of BISP and Nadra beneficiaries had been clubbed and relied upon for the time being, she said. But in the next phase, she added, the government would collect the data of entire 125m people under Punjab Socio-Eco­n­omic Registry Project wit­hin next four months for effective government inte­rventions in the future.

Each Ramazan Relief Package hamper contains 10kg flour, 2kg ghee, 2kg sugar, 2kg rice and 2kg gram flour (Besan).

She asked deserving people to register complaint or give feedback regarding Ramazan package at the helpline (080002345).

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024