PTI moves Punjab Assembly for Rana Sanaullah's removal over misogynist remarks

LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker Murad Raas on Tuesday submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly condemning provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah’s remarks against party's female workers.

The resolution called for Sanaullah’s immediate dismissal from the Law Ministry and demanded an apology over his ‘derogatory’ remarks towards female participants of a PTI rally in Lahore on April 29.

On April 30, a day after PTI’s rally at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan, Sanaullah had said, “The women who attended the rally were not from honourable families because their dance moves implied where they had actually come from."

Sanaullah is not the only Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader who has drawn ire in the past few days over his misogynist remarks.

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Federal Minister Tallal Chaudhry, at a separate press conference, had said: "We don't ask whose house you [Imran Khan] stay at when you visit London. It is another matter altogether what you do over there. When it comes to your wife, she remains veiled, but our mothers and sisters are for display?"

A third PML-N leader, Abid Sher Ali, issued derogatory remarks against PTI's Shireen Mazari while addressing a public gathering in Faisalabad on Sunday night.

Abid Sher Ali said that while Mazari was protesting against Finance Minister Miftah Ismail's budget speech in the National Assembly, she had said: "Don't touch me."

"What is there to touch?" he asked the crowd.

After the comments sparked backlash, Punjab government spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan condemned the remarks.

"Be it Abid Sher Ali, Rana Sanaullah, Tallal Chaudhry or Imran Khan, I cannot tolerate this as these women are our mothers, sisters and daughters," Malik said while speaking to a private news channel.

"Irrespective of their political affiliation, [such derogatory language] should not be used against those mothers and sisters who come forward to take part in the political process," he added.

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However, despite his condemnation, the Punjab government spokesperson held PTI chief Imran Khan responsible for the remarks saying he has started a culture of “using bad language”.

Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan, who also belongs to the PML-N, condemned the ministers’ remarks on Twitter.

"Disrespectful remarks about women are reprehensible, regardless of who utters them,” he said.

Earlier, PTI leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Imran Khan slammed the "vile, misogynistic comments" made against the party's female workers by PML-N leaders.