Responding to Qadri’s deadline, govt constitutes committee for talks written updates:-
ISLAMABAD: The government’s committee, constituted to hold talks with Dr Tahirul Qadri, asked for extension of his 90 minutes deadline, Express News reported on Thursday.
Qadri accepted the request and informed his supporters that negotiations with the government will begin at 3:45pm.
The committee headed by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain includes Farooq Sattar, Afrasiyab Khattak and Khurshid Shah.
The government ordered the deputy commissioner Islamabad to ask Qadri for more time to respond to his demands.
An hour before the government announced the decision to form a committee, the Minhajul Quran International (MQI) chairman had given a final deadline for his demands to be fulfilled.
The deadline ended at 3pm Thursday. Rangers were deployed around the Parliament House and President House to heighten the security.
Qadri asked President Asif Ali Zardari to send a delegation to hold talks over his demands or “lose the last chance of saving peace”. “We have already given too many chances to law, to democracy and to peace”.
Qadri also announced that he will end the sit-in in Islamabad by Thursday night.
He criticised the government for not sympathising with the women and children present at the long march. “I had asked the women to not participate, but they insisted and debated with us. They have come here on their own will.”
Qadri’s protest rally, which began from Lahore on January 13, has threatened to destabilise the nuclear-armed country as it inches towards what would be the first democratic transition of power between two civilian governments at elections due by May this year.
The government has not announced any date for polls other than saying that parliament will disband in mid-March to make way for a caretaker government and elections within 60 days under the constitution.
Qadri wants parliament dissolved now and a caretaker government set up in consultation with the military and judiciary to implement key reforms such as setting up a new election commission and banning corrupt candidates.
(With additional input from AFP)
