LAHORE: Governor Chaudhry Sarwar says complaints of violations of the minority rights are more in the advanced countries than in Pakistan.

He says he has spent years in England and travelled to other countries where the Muslims are not enjoying equal rights for their cultural and religious activities as compared to the minorities living in Pakistan.

Mr Sarwar was addressing a ceremony organised after the inauguration of a water filtration plant at the training college of the National Highways and Motorways Police in Sheikhupura on Monday.

NH&MP Inspector General Kaleem Imam, Punjab Minister for Human Rights Ijaz Alam, provincial minister for disaster management authority Mian Khalid Mehmood, commandant training college Mehboob Aslam, DIG Chaudhry Sultan and other senior officers were present on the occasion.

“When I talked to the British institutions and politicians I got terrified on knowing some hard facts that the country was facing critical shortage of personal protecting equipment (PPE), N95 masks, beds and other health facilities for the patients/public during the Covid-19 first wave despite investing billions of dollars in the health sector,” said the governor.

He said if the countries like England, which had a strong health system, could face such a situation, what would be the state of affairs in Pakistan where the poorly equipped hospitals were admitting two or more patients on a bed.

However, it was a matter of pleasure that the doctors, nurses and paramedics had rendered historic services and contained the virus in Pakistan and the damage was not alarming as was reported in Europe and other countries. He said another challenging issue that surfaced during the Covid-19 was the unemployment of the daily wagers.

“I would give credit to Prime Minister Imran Khan who distributed Rs170bn among 15m families in Pakistan.”

He also criticised the mainstream media of Pakistan for running negative stories instead of projecting the good initiatives of the state institutions.

Earlier, addressing the event, Kaleem Imam said that NHMP enjoyed a distinct place among all police organisations because of exemplary training of its officers.

He thanked the governor for addressing the long-standing demand of clean drinking water for the college, which was housing 1,000 trainees besides the administrative staff.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2021