Observer Report Islamabad
Days after police in Islamabad fired tear gas on protesting government employees, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Sunday made light of the incident, saying it was “Necessary to test the tear gas as it had been unused for a long time.”
Addressing a ceremony in Rawalpindi, he said that the capital’s police “fired a little tear gas”, adding that it was necessary to test it since the tear gas canisters had been unused for a long time. “Only a little was tested, not a lot,” he claimed.
Last week, Islamabad police had fired over a 1,000 tear gas shells at the protesters to disperse them. The protesters, who were government employees, were demanding an increase in their salaries in accordance with the prevailing inflation.
Rashid, who was part of the government committee, said that the “real problem” was not the tear gas shelling but the pay raise that “amounts to billions of rupees in this time of inflation [and is a burden on the] treasury”.
“India knows that if it comes to Pakistan’s borders, 200 million people would think it a matter of pride to give their lives along with the army’s soldiers.”
Talking about the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s long march to Islamabad on February 26, the interior minister said they would be ‘welcomed’ if they followed the law and the Constitution.
In an apparent warning to the opposition, Rashid said that if the PDM came to Islamabad but did not remain within the limits of the law and the Constitution, then “Islamabad will be Islamabad [and] do not say you were not told.”
