LAHORE: The PPP Central Punjab general secretary has questioned the inordinate delay in the registration of the first information report (FIR) of Wazirabad firing incident in which the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief was allegedly injured.

“It is very astonishing that Chief Minister Parvez Elahi has not yet been able to register an FIR of the attack on Imran Khan in his own [Gujrat] division,” PPP leader Syed Hassan Murtaza said here on Friday.

Reacting to the attack on Imran Khan, Murtaza said a special session of the Punjab Assembly was called by the ruling party but Mr Elahi could not register an FIR of the incident.

He said the murder of Muazzam Gondal, a victim of the firing incident, had also been ignored by the Punjab government so far and his case too had not yet been registered.

Says PTI focusing on politicising the incident instead of investigation

He lamented that the PTI was focusing on politicising the incident instead of investigating it to unearth the mastermind behind the attack.

“It is surprising that confessional statements of the accused are being released from the police custody while provincial chief executive Parvez Elahi does not even know about it.”

The PPP leader rejected the PTI’s demand, terming it ridiculous that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and an army officer, should be removed from their offices.

Referring to PTI leaders Ejaz Chaudhry and Ahmad Chatha that they had prior information about the attack, he said if they knew about the attack in advance why the Punjab government did not make improved security arrangements accordingly.

Mr Murtaza lamented, what he called, malicious statements of PTI leaders Fawad Chaudhry and Asad Umar and warned that the country would suffer from instability as a result of this attitude.

He advised PTI chairman Imran Khan that the fire of hatred he was blowing into politics would also damage him and his party.

“Contaminating politics with hate has never yielded good results, so politics should be done as politics,” he suggested to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2022