PM Imran Khan leaves for Quetta: sources

ISLAMABAD: After successful dialogues between the government and the protesting Hazara community members, Prime Minister Imran Khan on late Friday night left for Quetta, ARY News reported, citing sources.

The sources said that the prime minister will meet with the bereaved families of the Machh incident and will express condolences on the loss of the precious lives in the incident.

Interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad and other senior leaders were also accompanied by the prime minister, said the sources.

However, talking to the Hazara community members in Quetta, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Khan Suri said that prime minister will leave for Quetta after the burial of the bodies of the miners killed in the Machh incident.

It is pertinent to mention here that negotiations between the government team and protestors staging a sit-in in Quetta against the killing of 11 coal miners had succeeded.

Making an announcement on behalf of the sit-in committee, it had been conveyed to the protestors that the relatives of the coal miners who were massacred brutally have agreed to bury their loved ones.

The committee had thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan, members of the cabinet, Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal for agreeing to their demands. “We have decided to bury our loved ones,” said a member of the committee.

Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Ali Zaidi had said that it was for the first time that a government had signed a written agreement with the Hazara community as their predecessors had only done mere lip servicing.

Announcing the agreement signed by both sides, he had said that a special commission would be formed under the chair of the provincial home minister.