ISLAMABAD: Information and Broadcasting Minister Shibli Faraz Wednesday said that the opposition was giving conflicting statements showing “lack of unanimity and sense”.

The minister, while addressing a press conference said that the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has “lost his sanity.”

Lamenting the opposition and their statements along with their reaction to the Gilgit-Baltistan Election 2020 results, Shibli Faraz said that their conflicting statements were obvious because they did not have any unanimity or any agreement.

They do not have any solid plan either, he added.

He said, their remarks and comments only show their frustration on “losing their sanity.” Given that he is a “gatekeeper of Islam,” engages in politicking using Islam, and does business under the pretence of politics, the statement he made about Shabbar Zaidi [the former FBR head] - one that had no head or tail - was a lie that does not suit any religious leader, the minister said.

He said Shabbar Zaidi strongly rebuked it, while saying that if there was an honest leader in Pakistan because of whom this country could progress, it was Imran Khan.

He said the JUI-F chief should apologise for what he said, if he had any decency left.

Shibli Faraz further lambasted the PDM and its events in Gilgit-Baltistan, saying the JUI-F chief was expressing his views on the region and its election results but had neither the political identity nor the political presence there.

“I wish to comment on the rallies they are holding. Fazlur Rehman is the leader of this group; he expresses his viewpoints on Gilgit-Baltistan but did not win a single seat,” the minister remarked.

He said Fazlur Rehman had no political identity or presence there but he was openly expressing his thoughts about the Gilgit-Baltistan Election 2020.

“And [about the PDM’s] Peshawar rally, I’ll quote a Hadees. A religious scholar — and especially Fazlur Rehman who is leading this PDM — who, with respect to religion, knows more about what it says about the [coronavirus] pandemic than I do, but it’s sad to see that the knowledge that God has granted him and if he, despite that, goes against it, then in my opinion, an average Muslim like myself, cannot even dare knowingly ignore what our beloved Holy Prophet (PBUH) termed was impermissible in his Ahadees.”

“Hazrat Saad (RA) narrated that the holy Prophet (PBUH) said: ‘When you hear that a plague is in a land, do not enter it and if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place,” the federal minister said.

He said the coronavirus pandemic, which was a serious issue, was not a political matter. “It is one that has entangled the entire world in its grip.” In a tweet, the minister said that the only agenda of the opposition’s alliance is to get the cases against them abolished.

He said that the opposition parties wanted a judiciary, which gave judgments in their favour. He further said that those parties only consider those elections free and fair in which they secured victories.

He said that that was not a democratic but dictatorial conduct. He said there was no longer monopoly of certain families on the institutions, and Prime Minister Imran Khan had made them independent and autonomous.

The senator said the decisions taken by the masses would have to be accepted by the political parties.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020