Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan more equipped to be PCB chief, says Sindh CM

Islamabad, November 1

The Chief Minister of Sindh province Murad Ali Shah on Monday launched an acerbic attack on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s handling of the proscribed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) workers’ protests, asserting that he is more equipped to be the chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board than serving as the country’s premier, a media report said. 

Addressing the media in Islamabad, Shah said that precious lives were lost due to the incompetence of the Pakistan government over the handling of the issue of the TLP protests, Geo Tv reported. 

Nineteen people, including 11 TLP workers and eight policemen had lost their lives and more than 300 were injured since the clashes broke out a fortnight ago.

“The PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) government does things it can’t spit out or digest,” Shah, who is a member of the Opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said, calling for all stakeholders to sit down and think about what is in the country’s interest.

Shah said that he had heard Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, saying that the Pakistan cricket team was performing admirably in the ongoing T20 World Cup in the UAE because of him, in an apparent dig at the prime minister, the report said. 

“I had said earlier as well, that it is better for PM Imran Khan to work in the Pakistan Cricket Board,” he added. 

The Sindh chief minister’s comments come a day after the Pakistan government’s negotiating team comprising a group of influential clerics and the TLP had reached an agreement after lengthy negotiations, following days of protests by the hardline Islamic outfit’s members demanding the release of their party chief Saad Hussain Rizvi and expulsion of the French ambassador.

The TLP, which was established in 2015, started its protest to force the government to free Rizvi and expel the French ambassador as a protest against publishing blasphemous cartoons in France last year. —PTI