KP CM removes Mashal Yousafzai as special assistant following interview on PTI protests

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has ordered the removal of Special Assistant to Chief Minister Mashal Yousafzai from her position, it emerged on Saturday.

A letter from the Chief Minister’s Secretariat to the secretary of the KP government’s administration department, dated November 29 and seen by Dawn.com, said: “CM KP has directed that Miss Mashal Azam, special assistant to CM KP, may immediately be de-notified.”

It ordered that necessary action regarding the matter be taken at the earliest under intimation to the secretariat.

The development comes following an interview of Yousafzai, who is also the spokesperson for PTI founder Imran Khan’s spouse Bushra Bibi, on Geo News programme ‘Naya Pakistan’ a day ago.

Speaking on the show about the events surrounding the November 24 protest called by PTI, she spoke about Bushra Bibi’s participation in the protest and subsequent return to KP.

Asked whether Bushra Bibi was taken forcefully from the protest, Yousafzai had said: “This is correct that she didn’t want to go from there, the reason she came back [from the site of the protest] was that there was direct firing on her car.

“Still, she didn’t want to go but then there was some chemical thrown on her car’s windscreen which blurred it and nothing was visible. She was told the cars would be changed and she would be brought back to the party workers but the version after that I don’t know.”

Yousafzai also denied reports of Bushra being in contact with anyone in the party or attending and chairing any party political committee meeting after her return from the protest.

Questioned about criticism by PTI leaders on Bushra’s decision to persist with the location of D-chowk for the protest amid suggestions of Sangjani as an alternate venue, Yousafzai responded that she was an eyewitness to the discussions between the former first lady and PTI leaders when Bushra was told that Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif had gone to meet Imran at Adiala Jail.

She added that Bushra had retorted that Imran had taken a promise from her to reach D-chowk no matter the circumstances and wanted to talk to him directly to receive confirmation.

Mashal quoted Bushra as saying that she would have gone to Sangjani if Imran had ordered her.

Government ministers had mocked CM Gandapur and Bushra in the early hours of Wednesday for fleeing as law enforcement agencies took action to disperse PTI protesters from Islamabad’s D-Chowk.

Protesters had managed to gather at the site for the party’s protest to demand Imran’s release, among other things, amid reports of intense tear gas shelling by security forces to curtail the large crowds. The PTI convoys had been plying roads countrywide since Nov 24.

It was a day of pitched battles between security forces and PTI protesters across the federal capital which ended in a hasty retreat of the party’s top leadership and supporters from the Red Zone in the early hours of Wednesday.

At least six lives were lost in the three days of protests, which included a policeman and three Rangers officials who were knocked down by a speeding vehicle, officials and hospital sources said.

The late-night retreat by the PTI leadership, including Bushra Bibi and Gandapur, came after the latter was heard telling the protesters “to go home, have dinner and return tomorrow”.