ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have accused each other of patronising and protecting criminals in provinces under their governance.

On Tuesday, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari issued a statement expressing concern over the “sheer negligence” of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and its police force in driving out culprits involved in a number of recent rape and murder cases.

This was followed by a rejoinder from senior PTI leader Ali Zaidi who alleged that the PPP had turned Sindh into “a hub of organised crimes”.

In a statement issued by the PPP’s media office, the party chairman said that reports about how the killers of medical student Asma, young Sharifan and university student Mashal Khan were still at large due to the backing of influential people belonging to the PTI were “disgraceful”.

“It appears that the PTI has become a party of several ladlas [blue-eyed boys] ganging up together to protect killers, murderers and even militants,” said Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

The PPP chairman claimed that it was a local PTI leader who had incited a mob to kill Mashal Khan, an innocent university student, and he had still not been arrested despite the passage of nine months.

Similarly, he said, there were confirmed reports that a nephew of the president of the PTI’s Kohat chapter and a man identified as the killer of Asma, had fled to Saudi Arabia — which would not have been possible without collusion of the KP government.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari pointed out that as per media reports, the killers of Sharifan and Asma were being shielded by influential leaders of the PTI in KP.

He condemned the “criminal complicity” of the party’s leaders in such horrific crimes and the silence and laxity of their chief ladla “who talks on everything under the sky minus what is happening under his nose”.

“It seems that the PTI has turned into the grandmother of heinous crimes in KP,” he added.

On the other hand, Mr Zaidi asked the young PPP chairman to “assess his party’s worst form of governance in Sindh which had turned the province into a hub of organised crimes before inveighing against the PTI”.

He said that the PPP chairman should abstain from issuing “childish statements”.

The PTI leader asked Mr Bhutto-Zardari “to spit out the name of the party which was backing Uzair Baloch” and also asked him to elaborate on the role of the Sindh government in the Nisar Morai case.

“He must tell us who assisted Naqeeb Mehsud’s murderer Rao Anwar in going underground... living in a glass house, Bilawal [Bhutto-Zardari] should not throw stones at others,” said Mr Zaidi, adding that the PPP chairman would not succeed in addressing the plight of farmers at the hands of his father yet criticising others unashamedly.

He advised the young Bhutto-Zardari to focus on Sindh instead of making hollow promises and wasting energies on criticising political opponents.

Mr Zaidi also asked the PPP chairman to share evidence with the KP police regarding the cases instead of beating around the bush.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2018