It was perhaps only the backlash that forced the PTI to take action
LAHORE: Some days back, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf welcomed Farooq Bandial, one of the six convicts sentenced to death for committing a robbery at screen legend Shabnam’s home in Lahore and raping her. The party after facing a backlash from various social media platforms against the decision reversed it and expelled the new member right away.
However, it is hard to believe that the PTI’s big-wigs were unaware of who they were awarding a party ticket to, especially when a relatively younger lot was quick to point at Bandial’s past criminal record as the case was a high-profile one of the late 1970s.
It was perhaps only the backlash that forced the PTI to take action — the absence of which would have certainly ensured a criminal’s presence in the party and tainted its purported Naya Pakistan claims.
Wajeeh Yahya
Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2018.
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