LAHORE, Sept 24: The Pakistan People’s Party and the PML-Q held demonstrations here to condemn the attack on a Peshawar church and expressed solidarity with the Christians.

Led by PPP Secretary-General Sardar Latif Khosa, the participants were holding placards and banners chiding the PML-N government for its failure to protect the lives of the people and arrest the culprits.

They took out the rally from GPO Chowk to Faisal Square and expressed solidarity with the Christians.

Mr Khosa demanded constitution of a judicial commission to probe the Peshawar incident.

He said the PPP had expressed its reservations over talks with militants at the All-Party Conference as they could not be trusted.

He said the government should revisit its approach towards them (militants). “Can the government hold talks with beasts,” he asked and said the militants were not Taliban but ‘Zaliman’.

The former governor said the PML-N and the PTI had no right to stay in government if they could not even protect minorities.

Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, Samina Ghurki, Aslam Gill, Shuakat Basra, Usman Saleem Malik and Faiza Malik also attended the rally.

Addressing the PML-Q rally outside the press club, its provincial secretary-general Chaudhry Zaheeruddin said the whole nation was saddened because of the loss of precious lives in the suicide attack on a church. He said the government should fulfill its duty of protecting lives of the citizens and make a uniformed policy to deal with the menace of terrorism in the country.

PML-Q minority wing’s provincial president Shahzad Elahi said the people needed Pakistan of the Quaid-i-Azam and not of extremists. He demanded the government arrest the culprits without any delay and bring them to justice.

Nasir Mahmood Gill said the government appeared to be defensive in the face of growing terrorism in the country, asking it to deal with it firmly.