The first session of the National Assembly on Wednesday was particularly harsh for Minister of State for Narcotics Control Shehryar Afridi as opposition members launched a scathing attack on him over the matter of the heroin recovery case against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Rana Sanaullah Khan.
The opposition members repeatedly called Afridi a “liar” and mocked his oft repeated sentence “Mein ne jaan Allah ko deni hai” when the minister got up from his seat to respond to a query regarding the development work being undertaken in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
PML-N MNA Shahnawaz Ranjha said that Afridi was his friend but “inhon ne jaan Allah ko deni hai”.
The opposition’s criticism angered Afridi who responded by saying that some people would give their soul to Allah like Hazrat Imam Hussain (AS), while some people would face God’s wrath like “Shimar and Firon”.
He said that he would prove all allegations against him wrong if he was granted some time.
Interestingly, no person from the PTI or its coalition partners came to Afridi’s defence.
Later, while speaking on the development in erstwhile FATA, Afridi informed the House that the budget for the merged tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been enhanced from Rs58 billion to Rs162bn.
Afridi said that Rs62bn had been allocated to the KP government for the “recurrent and development budget” for erstwhile FATA.
He said that Rs48bn had further been earmarked by the federal government according to its share of the National Finance Commission Award and released to KP, adding that the federal government had also released Rs10bn for the previous financial year 2018-19 to the KP government.
“Rs11bn have been released for the temporarily dislocated persons of erstwhile FATA,” he said.
The minister said that the KP government had also earmarked Rs11bn according to its calculated share in the NFC for the current financial year. In addition to this, Afridi said the federal government had approved Rs1.1bn of the federal budget for extending the Prime Minister’s National Health Program for poor families in erstwhile FATA.
He said that Rs1.63bn has been provided to the KP government in lieu of the stopped political expenditure in erstwhile FATA.
