The Medina sloganeering incident continues to vitiate the political atmosphere in Pakistan. The Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) have been at the loggerheads since the Medina mosque sloganeering incident. The PTI supporters had abused and insulted Pakistan’s Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and physically attacked Minister for Narcotics Control Shahzain Bugti, violating the sanctity of the holy mosque, Islam Khabar reported.
Sunni Islamist outfits, especially Barelvis, are angered over the incident since the loud sloganeering and abuses violated the sanctity of Prophet Muhammad’s Mosque in Medina and urged the Islamabad Police to register a case against Sheikh Rasheed under Pakistan’s infamous ‘blasphemy laws’ for provoking people for violence and for violating the sanctity of the Masjid-e-Nabawi. In another statement, PTI’s top tier leader, and former minister of human rights, Shireen Mazari, alleged that the current finance minister of Pakistan Miftah Ismail “made fun” of some Islamic concepts during a talk in the United States, subtly charging him of committing blasphemy.
From openly blaming the Biden Administration for the alleged ‘conspiracy,’ and organising paid protests in foreign countries after his ouster, Imran Khan and other PTI leaders are desperately looking for some evidence to prove their points, while embarassing Pakistan internationally, noted Islam Khabar. The key suspects in the case included close aides of Imran Khan such as former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, ex-special assistant to the Prime Minister for political communication Shahbaz Gill, National Assembly’s former deputy speaker Qasim Khan Suri, Aneel Mussarat, a British-Pakistani businessman, among others, the report added. Imran Khan has become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan to lose a no-trust vote in the National Assembly as 174 members voted in favour of the motion out of 342-member House, while members of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were absent during the voting.