LAHORE – Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was presiding over a high-level meeting to review law and order in the province at Chief Minister’s Secretariat late on Tuesday night when a commerce graduate attempted suicide over unemployment outside the CM’s tent office at Minar-e-Pakistan.
Clad in paint-shirt, the 22-year-old youth identified as Aajiz Ali attempted suicide by sprinkling petrol over his body at the footpath in front of Minar-i-Pakistan, one of the most important national monuments of the country.  Shahbaz Sharif has recently placed a tent office beneath Minar-i-Pakistan to protest against the worst load-shedding across the country, particularly in the Punjab province.
“We have arrested the youth and a case has been registered against him as per the law. He has been put him behind the bars,” replied a police officer after Tuesday midnight, when contacted. The 22-year-old youth did B.Com, and reached Lahore from Bahawalpur district in search of job the several days ago, police said.  Aajiz told the police investigators that his family had been facing severe financial constraints and he was disillusioned as he failed to get a job.
“He is very innocent and also an idiot because he attempted suicide in the absence of the Chief Minister. Had he done this act in the morning, it would have been brought into the notice of the Chief Minister,” a police investigator commented, when contacted.
 The police on Wednesday released the youth after he secured post-arrest bail from a local court. “He has been freed. We have also advised him not to do it again,” the on-duty police officer at the Lorry Adda police station told this reporter on Wednesday night.
Police sources said that SHO Lorry Adda police station Muhammad Javed Bobak registered an FIR (376/12) under section 325 of PPC (attempt suicide) against Aajiz Ali, son of Qasim Ali Rajpoot, a resident of Chak No-91/F, Tehsil Hasilpur, district Bahawalpur.
The policemen deployed on the security duties around the Minar-i-Pakistan ground immediately intervened and managed to capture the youth, shortly after he set himself of fire. The youth sustained burns but the policemen managed to put out the fire immediately after the youth set him ablaze. He was arrested and sent to the police lock-up late on Tuesday night. However, the policemen took him to the burn unit of a local hospital medical treatment on early Wednesday.
Political pundits say that unemployed persons are pouring in at the Chief Minister’s Tent Office since the Punjab government announced 80,000 more jobs for the youth in the budget proposals tabled in the Punjab Assembly for the fiscal year 2012-13. The Punjab government has promised to create 80,000 jobs in the public sector and to start an internship programme for 50,000 graduates in the budget presented on the weekend.
 A couple of weeks ago, a woman became focus of the media after she made hue and cry when the policemen stopped her from attempting to reach the Chief Minister’s tent office.