Hospital not safe for Pashtun leader; attacked twice in Karachi

Islamabad, Pakistan:

Wazir, who is the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) lawmaker from South Waziristan is currently facing sedition charges and is in prison at the Karachi Central Jail since December 31, 2021.

He claimed that while addressing the PTM workers outside the hospital late on Wednesday night he had been attacked twice at the hospital. Wazir said that he was first attacked on his first day at the hospital and later again on Wednesday night.

Following the alleged attacks on him, the Pashtun leader demanded that he should be taken to Islamabad to attend the budget session. “I should be taken to Islamabad to attend the budget session [in the NA and] raise the problems of my constituency,” Wazir said, reported Dawn.

 
Wazir said that “I demand that I should be sent back to the jail as I feel insecure here.” The NA speaker had issued a production order for the PTM lawmaker on Tuesday to attend the ongoing budget session, but Wazir has so far not been shifted to Islamabad.

Wazir complained that this was the second time that he was not being allowed to attend the budget session. He also recalled that a production order for him was issued to attend a previous budget session when he was imprisoned in Haripur jail in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Speaking about that the PTM lawmaker said that he was not taken to Islamabad to attend the session at the time. Furthermore, Wazir also claimed that he had submitted an application with jail authorities for his medical treatment three years ago, but he was never shifted to a hospital until Tuesday.

Now that he is shifted in the hospital, he said that he could be barred from attending the budget session. “This is a session during which lawmakers raise problems being faced by the people of their constituencies,” he said, adding that his demand of being shifted from the hospital was not “illegal”.
Even when not involved in any act of terrorism or committed corruption, the PTM leader said that he is barred from attending the budget session.

While speaking to Pakistan’s local media outlet, the Dawn, the PTM leader Muhammed Sher Mehsud said that Wazir sat outside the hospital in protest as he was not allowed to meet relatives, friends and his party’s workers there. “He started his protest at 4 pm on Wednesday,” Mehsud said, adding that for Wazir, the “atmosphere at the hospital was suffocating as he had been asked to stay bed-ridden”.

Mehsud said later that officials from court police and police held talks with Wazir till 2 am on Thursday and agreed to shift him back to the prison today. Wazir was shifted to the hospital for physiotherapy,” Mehsud added, as per the media outlet.

The PTM leader was charged with treason and hate speech against the state. However, Wazir denied such allegations and blamed the state for a biased attitude towards minorities.