LAHORE: Pakistan’s leading political parties widely condemned an incident on Sunday wherein a man hurled a shoe at Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while he was attending an event at a religious seminary.
Sharif was about to reach the podium to deliver an address at Jamia Naeemia Lahore when a former seminary student tried to insult him by throwing a shoe at him.
The former premier was not seriously hurt in the attack, but the audience immediately caught the shoe-thrower and gave him a thrashing.
Sharif delivered his speech and later left the venue.
The incident came a day after a miscreant spilled ink on Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif's face while he was attending a workers’ convention in Sialkot.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers grabbed the man and handed him over to the police. Meanwhile, Asif left the stage to wash his face but returned to finish his address.
“Maybe my political opponents gave him money for throwing ink on me … I forgive him and ask the police to release him,” he said.
Pakistan’s high-profile political leaders belonging to different factions condemned both incidents.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which is very critical of the PML-N, denounced the attacks on its Twitter account, saying “our moral values don’t allow this.”
Khan also made a similar statement while talking to the media. He said that he was happy that no PTI worker was involved in these attacks, adding that he wanted to tell other people not to resort to such political expressions as well.
However, Maryam Nawaz Sharif blamed Khan and his politics of agitation for sowing the seeds of discord in the country while addressing a rally in Rawalpindi. She bitterly criticized the PTI chairman for introducing abusive language in politics.
“Do you believe that a single statement of condemnation is sufficient,” she asked. “You [Imran Khan] taught people how to use abusive language. You told them to drag the rulers by their neck.”
Other leaders, including Pakistan Peoples Party’s Senators Rehman Malik and Aitzaz Ahsan, condemned the incidents. Maryam Nawaz Sharif made Khawaja Asif’s photo her profile picture on Twitter to show solidarity with him.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal also challenged Khan, saying in a tweet that PTI workers were behind the shoe-throwing incident against him in Narowal last month.
