HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party information secretary Senator Maula Bux Chandio on Wednesday accused the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government of being “facilitator of na-maloom afrad [a term used for criminals who are never identified] and known mafias, and said that it now stood exposed.

“Those ruling over the country are staging dramas while people are groaning under price hike,” he observed in a statement.

He said prices of flour, fuel and electricity had increased to the extent that people were unable to bear the financial burden.

“[Prime Minister] Imran Khan’s [government] has deprived people of bread in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Mafias are looting people and the national exchequer with both hands and his government is facilitating their activities,” he alleged.

Senator Chandio pointed out that power consumers in Sindh were facing unannounced and prolonged loadshedding, and claimed that the [PTI] government was presenting wrong figures, as it was doing on the issues of locust and Covid-19.

He said that it had become PTI government’s culture to rely on wrong statistical data and na-maloom [unknown] sources.

“After creating a storm over JITs’ reports, it has now claimed that the same were provided by na-maloom afrad,” he said, and recalled that na-maloom afrad had wreaked havoc in Karachi. They were part of government, he claimed.

Senator Chandio remarked that like their “selected” prime minister, PTI ministers were making statements without any evidence. He stressed that PTI would have to explain its position on the ‘fake’ JIT report that had caused a storm. He said he knew that this was being done to divert people’s attention from locust and coronavirus situation in order to cover up the government’s incompetence.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2020