ISLAMABAD: Amid escalating criticism, Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to visit Quetta “soon” to express solidarity with the members of the Shia Hazara community, who have been protesting for the last six days along with the bodies of the coal miners killed on Sunday’s terrorist attack in the Mach area.
According to sources, “Time of the prime minister’s visit is being kept secret due to security concerns but will pay a surprise visit very soon.”
According to sources, Prime Minister Imran Khan left for Quetta as talks with the protestors, hailing from the Hazara community, staging a sit-in in Quetta have succeeded.
Sources, who is privy to behind the scene developments that had taken place after the gruesome murder of 11 miners, claimed that a number of cabinet members had suggested to the prime minister during the cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he should undertake a visit to Quetta to pacify the mourners.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leaders and activists to join protesters against the killing of Hazara coal miners in Balochistan’s Machh.
According to PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, her party leader has directed his workers and local leaders to join the protests of the Hazara community in their respective cities.
She also informed that the PML-N supremo has also instructed ex-PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to raise the issue in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) meeting.
On January 3, armed men slit the throats of 11 miners in a residential compound near a mine site in Balochistan’s Mach coalfield area, filming the entire incident and later posting it online. The gruesome attack was claimed by the militant Islamic State group.
Since then, thousands of Hazaras have staged a protest along with coffins containing the miners’ bodies in the western bypass area in Quetta, while members of the community have also held protests in other cities across the country.
Braving the biting cold, the mourners, including women and children, have refused to leave or lay the miners’ bodies to rest until Prime Minister Imran visits them and the killers are brought to justice.
Earlier today, PM Imran was widely criticized on social media when, amidst countrywide protests and rising political pressure, he suggested that the protesters were “blackmailing” him by refusing to bury their loved ones until he visits them.
