PTI leaders slam Katlang drone strike, Salman Akram distances himself from Saif’s remarks

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Salman Akram Raja has distanced the party from Barrister Saif’s statement on the Katlang drone strike.

Taking to his X (formerly Twitter) account, Salman Raja stated that the PTI parliamentary party, political and core committees expressed dismay over certain portions of Barrister Saif’s remarks. “PTI condemns the tragic attack that took innocent lives,” he wrote, in what appeared to be a rebuke to Saif’s stance on the matter.

Meanwhile, PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram issued a strongly worded statement condemning the killing of innocent civilians who were grazing cattle in the mountains of Katlang, Mardan, as a result of a drone strike. He declared that justifying the deaths of innocent people under the pretext of ‘fog of war’ is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable.

He said that PTI, its leaders, and workers were deeply grieved by the Mardan tragedy and extended their deepest condolences to bereaved families. “We stand firmly with the grieving families and share in their sorrow equally,” he stated.

Sheikh Waqas termed the deaths of innocent children, women, and men a tragedy and an intelligence failure. He noted that Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had already announced a complete and impartial inquiry to investigate the tragic incident, bring the truth to the public, and hold those responsible accountable under the law.

He further stated that the provincial government had committed to providing full financial and legal support to the affected families.

Sheikh Waqas recalled that PTI’s founding chairman Imran Khan had consistently opposed drone strikes due to the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians under the guise of ‘collateral damage’. He asserted that the Katlang tragedy was yet another example of this pattern, where ordinary citizens were martyred in the name of counter-terrorism operations.

He reaffirmed PTI’s commitment to fighting terrorism but criticised the federal government’s approach, questioning why the KP government was bypassed and not taken into confidence before the drone attack was carried out.

With political tensions rising over the Katlang drone strike, the PTI has made it clear that it strongly condemns civilian casualties and demands accountability while signaling internal disagreements over how the issue has been publicly addressed.