Negotiating team, CM Punjab in touch with protesters, says Shehryar Afridi

ISLAMABAD: The negotiating team set up hold dialogues with protesters and the Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar are in touch with the leadership of agitators, holding sit-ins across country against the acquittal of Asia Bibi, to resolve the issue amicably.

This was said by Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi while talking to media outside the parliament here Friday.

Afridi said, “The government is showing utmost restraint to resolve the prevailing law and order situation amicably.”

He went on to say, the negotiating team set up by the federal government and the Chief Minister Punjab are in touch with the leadership of agitators. He was optimistic there will soon be a positive progress.

Shehryar Afridi said government does not want to exercise the option of using force to avoid any bloodshed, however, he made it clear that writ of the state will be maintained at all costs, Radio Pakistan reported.

The demonstrators were protesting against the court’s decision to free Asia Bibi, a mother of four, who had been living on death row since 2010, as the first woman sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan’s tough blasphemy laws.

A three-judge panel set up to hear the appeal, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, ruled the evidence was insufficient.