F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has regretted that he could not bring back PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan from London but predicted that the former three-time prime minister would step towards reconciliation, on Wednesday.
Talking to newsmen in Islamabad on Wednesday, Sheikh Rasheed said the politics of Prime Minister Imran Khan are above ‘everyone’s head’. “Imran Khan is going to do politics which are beyond Opposition’s thinking,” he added.
The minister said PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had not sought the removal of his name from ECL. “Shehbaz Sharif is working on that Nawaz would not have to go to jail whenever he returns,” he added.
Sheikh Rashid said that tomorrow (Thursday, August 5) would be observed as Kashmir Exploitation Day.
Addressing a seminar titled, ‘730 days of Kashmir under siege’ at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, the minister said traffic would come take a minute break on Thursday to show solidarity with the Kashmiris suffering at the hands of the Indian forces.
“We are very much familiar with the Indian designs in the occupied Kashmir and also know fully well the character and the past of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.
“I am myself a Kashmiri. And the Kashmiris have always given sacrifices for freedom,” the interior minister commented.
He emphasized that South Asia had unique importance in the world, and that Pakistan had an important role in it. “I have not studied at any international institution. I am a politician. But in spite of all that, I can predict that Kashmir will one day be free from the Indian shackles,” he said emphatically.
Rasheed said that Pakistan’s enemies had waged a ‘hybrid war’ against the country, and that the youth would have to remain prepared to counter that. “Some foreign journalists wanted to come to Pakistan, but the Indian government stopped them from visiting the country.”
The minister said that despite the fact that Kashmiris did not have an internet facility, still they have succeeded in raising their voice against the Indian brutalities.
He said he welcomed the Organisation of Islamic Conference’s (OIC) statement on Kashmir.
He said India was responsible for the bomb blast in Lahore prior to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting, adding whatever act of sabotage was being done in Pakistan these days, it was being done on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s orders.
The interior minister asserted that people of Afghanistan had to decide their future. “Whatever solution they find for their country’s problems, we are with them,” he added.
Later talking to the media, Sheikh Rasheed said that total 680 vaccination centers had been opened in the country. “Yesterday, 0.2 million people showed up at the vaccination centers which put a burden on the authorities,” he disclosed.
He told that the government would expand the network of centers offering treatment to the coronavirus patients in the next eight days. “We are going to build 110 wards for the treatment of the virus patients in near future,” Rasheed added.
He was of the view that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shehbaz Sharif would eventually opt for the politics of ‘reconciliation’. “Bear this thing in mind that Prime Minister Imran Khan is going to make more smart political moves in future,” the minister said while addressing the opposition.
Rasheed said that the next six months were extremely ‘crucial’.
