Leaders visit madrassah to express solidarity with blast victims

PESHAWAR: Leaders from various religio-political parties and government representatives on Wednesday visited the Jamia Zubairia in Dir Colony to express solidarity with the victims a day after a bomb blast at the seminary claimed eight lives and left scores of others injured.

Special Representative of Prime Minister on Religious Harmony, Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, went to the seminary and offered fateha for those martyred in the terror incident. Talking to the media, he said he had visited the seminary on the special directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan. Maulana Tahir Ashrafi said culprits involved in this barbaric act have nothing to do with humanity. “I am proud to be students of a madrassa and the martyred students are children of Pakistan,” he said and hoped that enemies of the country would fail to achieve their ulterior motives by such acts of cowardice.

The special representative of the prime minister said India was involved in funding groups in Afghanistan, adding Pakistan was being targetted for talking about peace in neighbouring Afghanistan. He said the nation would not forget the martyrs of the motherland and their sacrifices for the country would always be remembered. Meanwhile, a central leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) Mufti Kifayatullah condemned the brutal attack on the seminary.

He demanded the government to constitute a judicial inquiry to look into the matter and fix responsibility. The JUI leader was talking to reporters during his visit to the seminary. “The government should form a judicial inquiry under a Supreme Court’s serving judge,” Mufti Kifayat said. The JUI leader said the terror incident was pre-planned. It was a continuation of the killing of Maulana Mohammad Adil in Karachi recently after which Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad spilled the beans, he said.

He said the terrorist incidents were aimed at terrorising the political and religious forces to stay away from the democratic movement. He said the matter should be resolved once and for all and the only solution was to conduct judicial inquiry into the issue.

Mutfi Kifayatullah visited Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and inquired after the injured students. Earlier, central chief of Jamaat-e-Islami Sirajul Haq visited the LRH and inquired after the health of the victims of the blasts. He was accompanied by provincial president of the party Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, party’s parliamentary leader in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Inayatullah Khan. The JI chief condemned the incident and blasted the government for its failure to provide protection to the people. He said the government had badly failed on all fronts. He said the government was unable to take steps to provide security to the people.