ISLAMABAD – Information Minister Shibli Faraz has said the prime minister used the word “blackmail” for the ones who do politics on every matter.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has been under fire by the opposition after he accused the protesting Hazara families of “blackmailing” him into coming to Quetta.

“We can’t do this if you set a condition for the burial of the dead,” PM Khan remarked at an event in Islamabad Friday. “You cannot blackmail a PM like this when we have agreed to everything else,” he said.

On January 3, 10 coal miners were executed by unidentified men in their sleeping room in the Machh coal field area. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State’s Wilayah Pakistan arm.

Hazara protesters have been staging a sit-in at a highway near Quetta for the last six days and have refused to bury their loved ones. They say they won’t bury the victims until PM Khan arrives in Quetta and meets families of the slain coal miners.

The protests have now spread to several cities of the country.

PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz severely criticized the premier, saying, “If stubbornness had a face, it would be like that of Imran Khan”.

“They want two words of kindness from you,” she said of the protesters at a press talk in Karachi. “Do they look like blackmailers?”

Information Minister Shibli Faraz responded to critics on Twitter, saying the ones doing politics on tragedies were devoid of humanity and insensitive.

He said PM Khan “equally shares the grief of the bereaved families and considers it his foremost duty to get them justice”.