Two statements by PTI leaders have now got me thinking how wrong we were.
KARACHI: Standing in the voters’ queue for eight hours in NA-250 and again going there on re-polling day did not bother me one bit because I felt that a positive change must come to the country and many thousands of people like me went out to vote for that very reason. However, two statements by PTI leaders have now got me thinking how wrong we were.
First, a PTI parliamentarian called for the acquittal of Salmaan Taseer’s murderer. The man committed this crime in broad daylight in front of many witnesses. Instead of the issuance of a show-cause notice by the chairman for this outrageous statement, a feeble clarification by Arif Alvi stated that the MNA was merely airing his personal opinion.
I came across the second statement while watching a private television channel as the chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) was driven in a small motorcade without much fanfare, a noble gesture indeed in these dangerous times. But as he moved on, a well-known television anchor who was interviewing him asked him that whenever anybody is abducted for ransom in Karachi or Punjab or if any vehicle is hijacked from any other province, why is the abductee or vehicle mostly recovered from K-P? The chief minister hastily interrupted the host, and with some authority, claimed that no person or vehicle is recovered from K-P; instead, these are recovered from other areas. As I watched this very candid and heartwarming interview, a ticker started running below. It read: “A boy kidnapped in SITE, Karachi, and for whom a ransom of two crore rupees was demanded, has been recovered from Charsadda.”
Talat Siddiqui
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2013.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
