ISLAMABAD: Amid reports of secret talks with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf(PTI) founding chairman Imran Khan, the government on Tuesday announced there will be no talks with the party, and referred to Bushra Bibi, the wife of Imran Khan, as “a woman who has come to collect dead bodies”.

Talking to reporters flanked by Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said that this is the decision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that no talks will be held with the PTI.

“Premier during a meeting had issued an instruction to get the area cleared and avoid causalities”, he said, adding that the protesters, who had reached at D-Chowk, had been pushed back and the area has been cleared.

“You have seen the people who were claiming that they are staging protest, their only effort is to shed blood”, he said, adding that this is a clear-cut decision of the government that no talks will be held with those who are staging a sit-in.

Without naming PTI founding chairman Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, Naqvi said a woman is responsible for this whole chaos, damage to public properties and loss of precious lives. “The detail of their whole planning will be soon shared with the nation”, he said.

He said that protesters have fired shells at police and they used poor children as shields. “State is not weak and if any one thinks that after firing a few shells a person [Imran Khan] would be released then this is their misconception”, he said.

Tarar said that there is a procedure for banning a party, and it will be carried out when the time comes.

He said that Bushra Bibi was telling Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to lead the protest. Tarar accused PTI of planning the protest with the help of “foreign elements”, claiming that Afghanistan nationals had been recruited to join the demonstration.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024