NEW DELHI, Oct 14: The Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was heckled by unidentified persons at the Dulles International Airport when he arrived on Friday in Washington to attend meetings with the global lending institutions and seek much-needed aid for the cash-strapped and flood-hit country.
A video that went viral on Twitter showed that Dar accompanied by Pakistan’s Ambassador to US Masood Khan and other officials jeered at the airport. In the clips, the hecklers can be heard chanting slogans of “chor” “chor” directed toward Dar. In one of the videos, a man can be heard shouting: “You’re a liar. You’re a chor”.
In his retort, Dar says: “You’re a liar.” Mani Butt, the president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party’s Virginia chapter who accompanied Dar can be seen exchanging profanities with the hecklers. Dar, 72, recently took over as the finance minister of Pakistan from his predecessor Miftah Ismail. He is in the US to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Pakistan will seek new terms from international lenders after devastating floods hit the country. The total death count from the cataclysmic floods in Pakistan was close to 1,700. It has also displaced over 33 million people and caused economic damages to the tune of $40 billion, fanning fears that the country may not be able to meet its debt obligations.
This is not the first time Pakistani ministers have been jeered in public places on their trips abroad and even within the country. Last month, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb was heckled at a coffee shop in London. Earlier, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal was harassed by supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party at a restaurant.
In April, a group of Pakistani pilgrims accosted, heckled and chanted slogans against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his entourage at the Masjid-i-Nabwi in Madina during their three-day visit to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani politicians and other religious figures had condemned the incident and some even blamed the supporters of Khan’s PTI party.
(Manas Dasgupta)