The interior ministry has alleged that it has become a habit of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders to distort issues by ‘frequently indulging in doublespeak’.
The PPP must focus its attention on its own performance in Sindh and avoid distorting history and current affairs, the interior ministry said in a scathing riposte on Monday to a statement by the PPP spokesperson.
“If indeed the Difa-i-Pakistan Council is such a questionable organisation, why did the PPP government not resist its formation in 2009. More importantly, where was Farhatullah Babar when the same organisation held large-scale public meetings and media conferences during the tenure of [the previous] PPP government?”
“It is also a matter of record that former president (Asif Zardari) had met members of proscribed organisations during his tenure in the presidency. Such pictures are on the record as they were published by national dailies at that time,” he said.
According to the interior ministry’s spokesperson, Babar “can be excused for turning a blind eye to all these meetings and indulging in the kind of politicking that he is engaged in because that is all PPP is good at”.
However, Babar’s conscious efforts to subvert the “successes achieved against terrorism in the past three years can’t be excused”.
“Babar’s views are nothing less than insulting the realities and facts on the ground.”
But, he said, what could not be excused was Mr Babar’s conscious efforts to subvert the successes achieved in the fight against terrorism over the past three years. From a peak of 2,060 terrorist incidents taking place in only one year when the PPP was at the zenith of its power to the current year’s figures of 754, the hard truth that did not appeal to Mr Babar or his party was that while his government did nothing to deal with the monster of terrorism, the incumbent government’s record spoke for itself, he said.
The spokesperson advised the PPP to concentrate on its performance in Sindh and keep facts and realities in mind before issuing statements to confuse people.
The statement came just a day after PPP spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar condemned the ‘relations of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan with sectarian and non-sectarian militant outfits’ and termed it dangerous for the state and society.
Criticising the minister’s meeting with Maulana Mohammad Yousuf Ludhianvi, chief of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Mr Babar said that Chaudhry Nisar seemed to be unaware that the Difa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC) had been publicly calling for jihad in a neighbouring country and allowing its platform to be used by banned outfits.
