PPP says Pakistan government's deal with TLP is 'surrender by the state'

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has termed the agreement between the government and a proscribed Muslim outfit as a "surrender by the state" and asked the establishment to make the deal public, a media report said.

After weeks of protests by the outlawed Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in the country, the government reached an agreement with the group recently. The TLP has been urging the government to release its chief Saad Rizvi.

The demand for making the government-TLP deal public came from three different PPP senators through their separate statements a day after the members of the negotiating team from the government side announced that they had reached an 'agreement' with the TLP in order to end the nearly two-week-long impasse, but refused to divulge its details, reported Dawn.

Questioning the logic behind keeping the deal a secret, the PPP leaders have stated that the people of Pakistan and their elected representatives have every right to know the details.

The opposition party asked to reveal the contents of the agreement that had been signed in the "darkness of night".

"The citizens of this country have a right to know what has been agreed with a banned organisation that had paralysed the country, disrupted everyday life and business for 12 days and martyred innocent policemen," said PPP Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. The act of keeping the agreement secret had created many questions in the mind of the people of Pakistan, said PPP Senator Sherry Rehman, adding, what was there in the agreement which the government wanted to disclose "at an appropriate time", according to Dawn.

( With inputs from ANI )