ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan on Sunday said the military should temporarily halt bombardments in areas of North Waziristan where the civilian population has not evacuated.
“The operation should not be conducted in villagers where women and children are present as they are currently stranded,” Imran said in a press conference in the capital.
He also said that according to information available with the party, militancy will spread to areas bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the wake of the operation and that the police and security should be beefed up.
He urged the federal government to meet with the provincial government and chalk out a plan to facilitate the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as well as growing security concerns.
“The prime minister should stop his foreign trips and plan for rehabilitation. This planning should have happened before but the KP government was not informed of the operation.”
He also appealed to the Sindh and Punjab provincial governments to facilitate the IDPs. “I appeal to Sindh and Punjab not to stop people who are collateral damage of the operation from entering their provinces.”
“These are Pakistanis. It is not their fault. They are angry. They are being shunned.”
Federal govt should give KP Rs 6bn: Imran
Imran also called on the federal government to immediately release Rs6 billion to the Khyber Pakhtukhwa government, to help the facilitation of IDPs.
He said that Bannu already has a population of 1 million, with 500,000 refugees from the operation pouring in.
“The hospitals cannot take the pressure of so many people. There will also be a further increase in prices as Ramadan is approaching,” he said. “I appeal to the government for the immediate release of Rs6 billion from the Coalition Support Fund for KP.”
No alliance between PTI and PAT
PTI chief Imran Khan said that though his party would support the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and stood with them but that did not mean there was a the possibility of the formation of an alliance between the two parties.
Talking about Lahore's Model Town incident, Khan said that Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif should have tendered his resignation and also demanded that former provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah be sent to jail.