ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday came down hard on opposition parties saying said that Pakistan was at the verge of bankruptcy when he came to power.

Addressing the National Assembly session on Thursday, the prime minister while reacting to the criticism by opposition parties that the prime minister and his government was ‘confused’ on how to react to the pandemic, he issued a challenge to detractors.

He said, “I want to challenge you to point out a single contradiction in my statements since we imposed the lockdown on March 13.”

He said that ever since the pandemic broke out in Pakistan, his government faced a lot of criticism for not imposing a complete lockdown across the country, adding that the provincial governments criticised him and said that a stricter lockdown should have been imposed.

Comparing with the Indian government, Khan said that we were being told to impose lockdown like India, but the US newspaper New York Times wrote that the poor were crushed there due to strict lockdown in India, but still coronavirus is spreading fast.

“The whole world is saying that the lockdown caused damage," he said and added even the developed countries could not bear such drastic measures. We on the other hand has imposed a smart lockdown.

He said: “Next phase in the country’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic is difficult and urged the nation to strictly follow SOPs to avoid the tough situation.” “If we can get past this month without numbers escalating, the worse could be over,” he said, adding that warning negligence could make matters worse. NNI