Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Saturday said the PTI leadership and its foreign-based elements are using foul language while ignoring the sacrifices of the country’s armed forces and martyrs.
Speaking to the media, he said that the attitude adopted by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s leadership after the general elections is against political decency. He said that some PTI leaders and office-bearers openly used indecent language on social media.
He said the current PTI leadership – whether outside prison, in parliament, or anywhere else – uses the same indecent tone. The PTI elements who are abroad also use extremely harsh and irresponsible language. Although they claim that they are not associated with PTI, in practice both groups promote the same narrative and the same abusive language.
The defence minister said that when such language is used against individuals and institutions, a reaction is natural. He said that these people behaved the same way even when they were in power. The use of inappropriate language about women was also part of their past politics. Khawaja Asif said he had attended countless funerals of martyrs, visited their homes, and met their families with the prime minister, but he has never seen any PTI leader attending the funeral of a martyr.
Soldiers of the armed forces had sacrificed their lives for the country, yet the PTI leadership does not even acknowledge these sacrifices, he said. The defence minister said the PTI should attend the funerals of martyrs, raise its voice for soldiers and martyrs, avoid adopting the narrative of terrorists, refrain from showing leniency towards Taliban, and stop speaking of sympathy or concessions for them. When a party supports terrorists and uses language against its own army, then a reaction becomes inevitable.
He said that even during the war, the PTI leadership continued targeting its own armed forces, used inappropriate language, and adopted an insensitive and disrespectful tone about the martyrs.
Those whose language and character have fallen to such a level that even a martyr is not spared, cannot be expected to show decency or responsibility.
He said identity of PTI has become the identity of the enemies of Pakistan. If they want to do politics or protest, they may do so, but they must not dare to challenge Pakistan’s land, honour, or dignity.
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal also backed the ISPR. “Our armed forces are sacrificing in the fight against terrorism. The ISPR DG has been soft – if it were me, I would have used even stronger words,” he said.
Iqbal said he himself had been jailed in a “false case” but never spoke against Pakistan abroad. “Pakistan is one family. We do not take our disputes outside the home,” he added, calling for “responsibility from everyone.”
Anyone attacking state institutions and the military should face a “strict” response, he warned. He also highlighted terrorism as the “biggest challenge” for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and expressed hope that the provincial government would “play its constitutional role” in restoring peace.