ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi on Friday claimed that the families of the Mach massacre want to bury the bodies of their near and dear ones, but there are some elements who are behind prolonging the sit-in.

Taking to Twitter, the minister who belongs to Shiite Muslim community, said: “I’m duty bound to speak the truth, [as] there is written the name ‘Hussain Ibne Ali’ with my name”.

In the same breath, he continued that he had personally spoken to the families of the martyred coalminers, and they wanted to bury the bodies of their loved ones.

“Here goes the demands and here goes the agreement which is ready for the last two days. Though there is no alternative to the human life, the government has reasonably increased the compensation amount,” he tweeted.

Without openly naming the opposition parties and other element behind the sit-in protests in freezing cold with the dead bodies and linking it with the visit of the prime minister, he said: those behind this [sit-in] will be exposed soon.

A few minutes later, another top aide of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Syed Zulfi Bukhari who is also a Shia Muslim, copied the same tweet, shot by Ali Zaidi, in order to reiterate that “there are elements who exploit the mourners to prolong the sit-in and link it with the visit of the prime minister”.

However, the spokesman and special assistant to the prime minister, Nadeem Afzal Chan, who also comes from Shiite school of thought, took to Twitter to express his inability to help the protesting mourners at Machh.

“Oh my helpless innocent labourers, I’m terribly sorry,” he tweeted, in an obvious reference to this inability to convince the prime minister to take a flight to Balochistan, to console the mourners who have linked the burial of their near and dear ones with the visit of the prime minister.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021