Pakistan’s Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar has resigned, apparently in protest for not receiving the backing from the ruling PML-Q after she was served with a ‘fatwa’ by radical clerics for hugging her French paratroop trainer in Paris.
Bhaktiar, who had not been attending the office for some time, sent her resignation to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz before he embarked on a foreign tour three days ago. He is expected to take a decision on it soon.
Her resignation from the ministership came after she quit as the President of the ruling PML-Q women’s wing, which was accepted by the party chief Shujaat Hussain, who incidentally was the government’s negotiator to resolve the stand-off with clerics of Lal Masjid.