Vying for support: Nawaz, Qureshi to ‘meet soon’

Condoles with Hindu community in Chak over Shikarpur killings.

SUKKUR: Days after former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi quit the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has begun to vie for his attention.

“Qureshi is an old friend. We haven’t met as yet but we’ve spoken over the phone and will meet very soon,” PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif told reporters at the Sukkur airport on Thursday.

Flanked by former Sindh governor Mamnoon Hussain, Senator Pervaiz Rasheed, PML-N Sindh President Ghous Ali Shah and Saleem Zia, Nawaz criticised the current Sindh administration over its handling of the Hindu killings in Shikarpur.

“The Sindh chief minister should have come to Chak and resolved the issue, which could have been done amicably without the loss of lives,” he said.

He also visited Chak, where the incident had occurred, to condole with the Hindu community at Dr Satya Pal’s house.

“I request Hindus not to leave Pakistan. We will stand by you,” he told members of the minority community, which was shaken up by the murders of three doctors on Eid.

Nawaz condemned the fact that the actual killers were still at large and said that the government should resolve the case on priority. “Minorities are equally respectable and the government should provide them proper protection.”

Boy hit by convoy

But Nawaz’s compassion for the people appeared misplaced when, due to heavy rush and mismanagement, a young boy was run over by one of the vehicles in the motorcade.

The boy, identified as Shahzaib Mahar, lay on the ground unattended until some members of the media called the police who took the injured boy to the hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2011.