LAHORE, Aug 2: Deputy Prime Minister Pervaiz Elahi has said the PML-N should not target Imran Khan’s established welfare institution for political gain.

“Targeting a hospital for political vengeance is highly deplorable and the greatest moral degradation on part of N-League,” the PML-Q leader said in a statement issued here on Thursday.

Pervaiz Elahi said the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre was a non-political welfare institution where the deserving patients were being treated free of cost.

He said the PML-N’s allegations against the hospital might not be harmful to Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan but would certainly cause irreparable loss to the cancer patients from all over the country.

The deputy prime minister asked the PML-N leadership not to stoop so low. He said bad treatment being meted out to patients and doctors was a sad reflection of their tall claims of “rendering of services to the people,” he said.

PML-Q parliamentary leader in Punjab Chaudhry Zaheeruddin also asked the PML-N to establish a hospital like Shaukat Khanum before targeting it. “Despite remaining in power for 18 years the PML-N leadership could not establish a single institution in health sector like Shaukat Khanum,” he said.