LAHORE, July 2: Federal Information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad has said that Nusrat Shahbaz’s case has been mishandled.

Talking to reporters after addressing a seminar on Kashmir and Palestine issues at the Pakistan Movement Workers Trust auditorium here on Wednesday, he said that Nusrat Shahbaz and her daughters had not been arrested nor deported by the government but they had left the country on their own.

He said that they had come to Pakistan initially for two weeks but they over-stayed and they were given two more weeks to stay on. Again they had not left the country on the expiry of the time given to them. Yet again the government allowed them to stay for more days but they refused to leave the country.

However, he said: “What had happened should not have happened.” He said the government had told them that it could allow them to visit Pakistan again but they insisted to stay on.

Replying to another question about the government-opposition talks, the minister said that the government had not closed the doors. “We can start a dialogue any time.” He said that the prime minister was prepared to call a conference of the heads of political parties to discuss the constitutional and political issues but the opposition had moved a motion of no-confidence against the National Assembly speaker and now they had moved a no-confidence motion against the deputy speaker of the assembly. He said that the main opposition group was that of the MMA with whom the doors of talks were always open from the government side. Ass far as other smaller opposition groups were concerned, he said that they were making the MMA’s position awkward as they were creating problems for them.

Asked if there was any possibility of the dissolution of the National Assembly if a large number of its members belonging to the MMA were disqualified by the Supreme Court, which was hearing a constitutional petition challenging their membership, the minister replied in the negative.

He, however, said that there was the possibility of a constitutional and political crisis, which could be resolved.