PM’s special assistant attacked ‘by PPP workers’

Two PTI workers injured by abusive mob, says Arbab Ghulam Rahim

HYDRABAD:

The convoy of Prime Minister's Special Assistant Arbab Ghulam Rahim was allegedly attacked by the workers of Pakistan Peoples Party in Tando Muhammad Khan district on Thursday evening, leaving two workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) injured.

The PTI workers claimed that Imtiaz Shah and Muktiar Bhatti were physically beaten by the crowd that hurled abuses on Rahim as the convoy passed through a partially commercial locality.

"Hooligans of PPP tried to attack my car but the workers of PTI came in front of the vehicle to protect us," said Rahim, speaking to the media after the alleged attack. He claimed that the PPP leadership has become restless since his appointment as the PM's special assistant on Sindh Affairs.

"They are worried that I will move around in Sindh and meet the people, who are already annoyed with the PPP," he said. "They want to stop me through such acts of terrorism."

He asked the police to take action against the attackers. He said that he would also speak to PM Imran Khan over the matter. "I will tell the PM that if they [PPP] are given such liberty for violence then their excesses will continue in Sindh and what will happen to the common people whom they keep victimising."

Commenting on the Sindh Police, Rahim said the police will remain silent spectators to the criminal activities of the PPP's workers until the inspector general of Sindh police is not changed.

In videos shared on social media, a group of people can be seen shouting abuses on Rahim and cursing him as well as his convoy, which was also given the police protection, passed through a locality in Tando Muhammad Khan.

The police can be seen in the video requesting the attackers to clear the road as one of the PTI workers complained that he has been beaten. In another video one of the persons shouting abuses at Rahim is seen attacking a PTI worker and abusing him as well. The police tried to protect that PTI worker, but they did not arrest the attackers and his associates.

PTI Sindh General Secretary Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah has condemned the attack. At a press conference in Tando Muhammad Khan on Friday, Shah warned that if the PPP wanted such politics of intolerance, their leadership and ministers will also not be spared. "Our workers will begin to surround them and throw eggs and tomatoes on them."

The PTI leader demanded that the people involved in the attack on Rahim should be immediately arrested and punished for their crime, besides cancellation of their party's membership. Shah said the PPP workers involved in the attack on Rahim also tried to sabotage the peaceful political environment of Tando Muhammad Khan.

A convoy of PTI vice president and leader of opposition in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh was also allegedly attacked last month in Benazirabad district. Sheikh blamed PPP workers for that attack.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 14^th, 2021.