In a video that has now gone viral on social media, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was seen boasting about attacking government employees with tear gas shells on Sunday.
Rasheed, a key member in Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s Cabinet, said on Sunday, “We have recently increased salaries of employees by 25%. We have also used tear gas shells against them. It’s important. The tear gas shells were lying unused for a long time. It is important that we put them to test. As such, we did a little bit of testing (on people) but don’t worry they are safe.”
Fired a little tear gas on govt employees to test it: Interior minister Sheikh Rasheed. Govt used expired tear gas and several employees were injured in Islamabad protests.
— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) February 14, 2021
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His comments came in the backdrop of the recent protest by government employees in Islamabad, who have been demanding a hike in their current salaries in accordance with the inflation. The demonstrators, led by All Government Employees Grand Alliance, had announced that they will launch a sit-in-protest on Wednesday (February 10) at the Pakistan Secretariat until their demands were met. However, the police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protestors.
The Pakistani Interior Minister has been the subject of fierce criticism after he mocked the protestors and used them as ‘weapon testing objects’ instead of empathising with them. Following a violent clash between the demonstrators and the security personnel, the Pakistani government decided to increase the basic pay of government employees from Grades 1-19 by 25%. Rasheed, however, expressed his displeasure saying that the salary hike cost the government treasury billions of rupees.
We have bombs to target India without harming Muslims, claims Sheikh Rasheed
Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, who had once blamed breakfast made of eggs as the reason for the train disaster in Lahore, has once again boasted about his country having “very small, calculated and perfect bombs to target India all the way up to Assam, but in a way that Muslims are not harmed.”
In an interview with a television channel last year in August, Sheikh Rasheed admitted that the Indian Army is far superior to the Pakistan Army in conventional warfare. Therefore, Pakistan is working on these miniaturised nuclear weapons. He said that their bombs are so perfect and precise that they can hit places as far as Assam, but they will not harm Muslims as those small bombs will avoid Muslim dominated places.