The incident at Madina, where PTI supporters ran after the entourage of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was not just condemnable, but frightening, because it seemed that one side of the political divide was willing to take the discourse beyond words, rallies and assembly resolutions into the streets of the country. This was not the first incident of the kind, what with protests by PTI workers outside the houses of Nawaz Sharif and his children in London, or by PML(N) workers outside Imran Khan’s children’s house there, the incident involving former Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri in Islamabad. However, this is the first incident where the host country’s law enforcing agencies have gotten involved. Saudi Arabia has taken a serious view of the incident, not just because it involves a country which has a large number of workers there, but because of the example it sets for so many other expatriate countries.
The PTI’s involvement cannot be denied, first because of the presence of PTI activists Chicoo Jahangir and Anil Mussarat during the incident, and the damning statement of Imran’s former Interior Minister Sh Rashid, who had earlier predicted that the PM would be chased with slogans of ‘chor chor’. However, despite his tweet of mild condemnation and dissociation, Imran Khan himself has been calling for .the present government’s ministers to be called out in public, and for dissident MNAs to be hounded in public, and for crowds to gather outside their houses and raise slogans against them.
Mr Khan realized a little late that he will have to pour oil over troubled waters, and end his silence over the incident. His reaction, that PTI workers were busy in Shab-i-Dua, and his holding the PM and his supporters responsible for the incident, is, however, not going to stop such incidents. He must address the issue in a public statement, and make clear that such behaviour is an unacceptable to him as the alleged crimes anyone is supposed to have committed. He must also dial down some of the rhetoric he uses, because it inflames his supporters to such protests. Such protests then lead to responses, counter-responses and finally violence. Is that where the PTI wants to go? If matters are to be settled by hair pulling (and later sticks, daggers and guns), why bother with a constitution?
