Pakistan Today

The sulking Interior Minister

His abilities and capabilities are doubtful

 

Six days after the tragic killings of a bus load of Ismailis, Ch Nisar has finally found time to visit Karachi. The alibi of illness for his inability to come earlier and his failure to attend the high level meeting in Karachi presided over by the PM would fail to satisfy many. During the last nearly three years of the PML-N rule, the Interior Minister has missed more Cabinet meetings and parliamentary proceedings than any other minister. This has given currency to surmises about his differences with some of his Cabinet colleagues and even with the Prime Minister.

Nisar can be bitter in his criticism of the Opposition and even his PML-N colleagues. While condemning the drone attacks once he bluntly told PML-N leadership to choose between dollars and honour. Being highly self-righteous Nisar however reacts strongly to any negative comment on his own performance. He boycotted the Senate for over a year when the Opposition in the House rejected his statistics of terror attacks for being fallacious. Being the Interior Minister he is supposed to be on the spot in case of any grave intelligence failure for damage control and for raising the morale of the people. He disappeared from the TV channels for weeks after the Karachi airport came under attack on June 8.

Nisar was conspicuously missing throughout President Xi’s two-day visit. As Nawaz Sharif and the Chinese President signed major deals, the man who was to look after the security aspects of the CPEC spent the entire day in Punjab House. The next day he did show up in the dying moments of the joint parliamentary session, but he was not seen even shaking hands with Nawaz Sharif or desk thumping during the PM and Chinese President’s speech.

Nisar’s attitude is affecting his performance. The NAP has been neglected. There has been no move to cleanse the ten per cent of seminaries Nisar himself considered to have been infected by terrorism. Due to his absence from the scene the Karachi operation has been taken over by the army.

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