Pakistan sliding towards civil unrest, warns former minister

A senior leader of ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has warned that Pakistan was sliding towards civil unrest.
Former information minister Fawad Chaudhry made the remarks on Saturday in reaction to brawls in the Punjab Assembly in which both speaker and deputy speaker were thrashed by the angry lawmakers.

Police was called to control the rowdy members who were trying to stop acting speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari from holding voting to elect the new chief minister of the province.

“We are inches away from full fledge Civil unrest, Imran Khan has exercised utmost restraint very soon even he won’t be able to stop this very angry mob and we will see country plunging into a civil unrest,” Fawad tweeted.

The former minister also said that the ongoing political turmoil was linked to the Supreme Court’s “failure” to decide the case regarding the fate of rebel lawmakers.

Another leader from his party, Zulfi Bukhari, also concurred with Fawad’s statement.

“These are just a few MPAs (members of provincial assembly), imagine if the awam (public) goes out of control and takes the matter in their own hands… only solution to calm this civil unrest is ELECTIONS. Let the people decide their own fate. CALL ELECTIONS!” tweeted Bukhari.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned the attack on the deputy speaker, saying “this blatant display of violence & hooliganism is fascism, pure & simple”.
The country is bitterly divided into highly charged partisan lines over the ouster of Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion on April 9 – a move dubbed by Khan as a US conspiracy to change regime in Pakistan.