Imran meets aides despite testing +ve for Covid

Islamabad, March 26

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has come under severe criticism from both the Opposition and the public for holding an in-person meeting with his media team despite being infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a media report on Friday.

Khan, 68, tested positive for Covid on Saturday, just a couple of days after receiving an anti-Covid vaccine. First Lady Bushra Bibi also tested coronavirus positive the same day. Khan received the first shot of the Chinese-produced Sinopharm vaccine, the only anti-Covid jab available in Pakistan, on Thursday as part of the nationwide anti-coronavirus vaccination campaign which is underway in its first phase.

The criticism of the PM began soon after a picture of the meeting was posted on social media by Information and Broadcasting Minister Shibli Faraz and another lawmaker Faisal Javed, who attended the meeting.

The picture showed Khan, clad in a grey tracksuit and joggers, sitting in a room on a sofa at some distance from his media team comprising Faraz, Javed, Yousuf Baig Mirza and Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari.

According to the Dawn newspaper, Khan presided over the meeting at his Banigala residence on Thursday.

The opposition said the prime minister himself violated standard operating procedures despite the third wave of the dreaded disease and called for registration of an FIR against all those people who attended the meeting for violating the standard operating procedures (SOPs). PTI