ISLAMABAD: A day after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi received flak for refraining from calling Osama bin Laden a militant during an interview, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Monday categorically said that those who kill innocent people are “terrorists”.
In a tweet, the minister said that there was “no confusion at any level” regarding those who carried out terrorist activities and killed innocent people.
“That is terrorism and the perpetrators are terrorists. We have suffered the pain of terrorism in our own land and can understand the pain of all who have lost their loved ones in these cowardly attacks,” he said.
There is no confusion at any level re anyone who kills innocents. That is terrorism and the perpetrators are terrorists. We have suffered pain of terrorism in our own land and can understand pain of all who have lost their loved ones in these cowardly attacks. #Tollo
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) June 21, 2021
Qureshi, when the interviewer quoted Prime Minister Imran Khan as calling the former al Qaeda leader a “martyr”, said: “Out of context. He [prime minister] was quoted out of context.”
But when asked if he would disagree, the foreign minister paused for a while and then said: “I will let it pass.”
In June last year, Prime Minister Imran landed himself in hot waters after he told parliament that bin Laden had been “martyred” in 2011 by US forces.
Bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks on the United States, was killed in a raid on his hideout after eluding detection for nearly 10 years.
“I will never forget how we Pakistanis were embarrassed when the Americans came into Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, martyred him,” he had said in his speech.
The prime minister’s speech had come as the Foreign Office hit out at a US State Department report that accused Pakistan of being a “safe haven” for “regionally focused terrorist groups”.
