Prime Minister Imran Khan promised on Friday to visit the families of slain coal miners to express solidarity with them once they bury their loved ones.
“If the bereaved families bury the victims today I will go to Quetta today” the prime minister pledged while speaking at an event in Islamabad.
He said all of their demands had been met as of Thursday but the Hazara mourners were insisting on his visit to Quetta as a condition for burial of the victims, which, he said, is uncalled for.
“One of their demands is that they will bury the victims after the prime minister comes [to Quetta],” the PM said, adding: “No country’s premier is blackmailed like this.” He once again urged the members of the Hazara community to bury their loved ones.
He said he sent the interior minister first and then two of his cabinet members to the Hazara community to speak and sympathise with them and deliver a message that the government shares their sorrow and pain and fully stands behind them.
The premier said the Machh incident is part of an Indian conspiracy to incite anarchy and sectarian strife in Pakistan. The Indian plot was to murder religious scholars of different schools of thought, he disclosed.
