Information Minister Attaullah Tarar slammed the PTI for its stance towards the banned TTP and claimed the party has extended an “olive branch” towards the group.
“The spokespersons of the political party are afraid of talking about the terrorist group, as they have taken exemption from it by extending an ‘olive branch’ to them,” said Tarar while addressing a press conference alongside former ANP senator Zahid Khan.
The information minister also accused the PTI of initiating “confidence-building measures with the TTP” and added that they were afraid of being attacked by the TTP, so they didn’t call them terrorists.
Tarar made this statement after playing a clip from a program in which the host openly called the TTP a terrorist group. However, Shafiullah Jan, an adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, insisted that there are “groups within the TTP,” adding that those who are “against the state are terrorists.”
“They are afraid of saying anything regarding the TTP,” said Tarar, citing the example of former MPA Samar Haroon Bilour, who spoke courageously against terrorists in the Assembly despite losing her husband and father-in-law to terrorism.
He also accused the PTI of “bringing back terrorists” and settling them in KP after terrorism had been eliminated from the province.
“Their leader [ PTI founder Imran Khan] used to call terrorists martyrs,” he said, adding that the PTI’s social media accounts criticised the army chief and the Pakistan Army, but did not utter a single word for the martyrs of the armed forces, as they are afraid of terrorists.
