Offering condolences: CM visits NATO attack victim’s family

Sharif says Pakistan needs to give up foreign aid to carve a secure future.

SAHIWAL:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the house of Captain Usman Ali, who was martyred in the Nato attack recently.

The chief minister was moved to tears when he lifted the deceased captain’s two-and-a-half month old son and expressed his deepest condolences to the grieving family.

Captain Usman Ali was 23 years old, got commissioned to the Pakistan Army in 2007 and had gotten married last year. Ali’s widow Tooba Usman said, “The people we are fighting for are not our friends and our government needs to remember that our soldiers’ lives are not disposable”. “I just hope that the Pakistani nation’s current rage against the attackers remains. We need to tell the world we will not accept such terrorism,” she added. Tooba told the chief minister that it was time Pakistan disassociated itself from Nato and the US.

“The sentiments of Captain Usman Ali Shaheed’s widow echoes the voice of the entire nation. We will never forget this tragedy,” CM Shahbaz Sharif said. “The time has come for 18 crore Pakistanis to choose between a life of respect or ignominy. US foreign aid is drenched in the blood of martyrs and we will have to give it up and get back up on our own feet,” he said.

Senior adviser Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, provincial minister for Zakat and Ushr Malik Nadeem Kamran were also present.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2011.