ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rana Sanullah on Wednesday said that no one would be intimidated by the former prime minister Imran Khan’s “threats and blackmailing” and the law will take its course with respect to inquiries launched against him.
The minister, while addressing a press conference said this, while responding to Khan’s Tuesday’s video speech, in which, he had threatened to “reveal everything” about the characters involved in the alleged conspiracy to oust his government if harassment of him and his party did not cease.
“If we are pushed against the wall and harassed then I will be forced to speak up and will reveal everything before the nation about what happened,” Khan further said in his speech.
“Have you been (Khan) put behind the bar in Kot Lakhpat or Adiala jail; had the ceiling fan from the barrack of the jail been removed; had your medicines been stopped; had your daughter or sister been put behind the bar; —tell me how have you been harassed? You (Khan) have been doing this with your opponents during the last three and a half years,” Sanaullah said, adding that so far, nothing had been done with the former prime minister.
He asked was it harassment to question the former premier about his corruption?
Is asking about misappropriation of nation’s Rs50 billion and embezzlement of Rs5 billion harassment, he said, adding Khan did not answer the question about obtaining assets of Rs5 billion including 485 kanals in his wife Bushra Bibi’s name and 240 kanals in Farah Gogi’s name in Bani Gala.
The minister said that former premier Khan had so far not responded to the questions about the gifts he received from Toshakhana.
Sanaullah further asked Khan that if he wanted to reveal everything that then he should tell the nation, on whose instruction he staged the 2014 sit-in in Islamabad. “If you want to tell everything then tell the nation why you falsely implicated me in 15kg heroin case,” he asked, adding the reality was that the case against him was made by Imran Khan himself and Shahzad Akbar proved to be instrumental in that case.
The minister appealed the Supreme Court to order an inquiry regarding that matter and find out who were the real perpetrators.
“If I am proven guilty, I am ready to be sentenced to capital punishment. But if the case is not proved against him then those who made the false drug case against him be sent to jail for life,” he said.
“Are you feeling the pain from the ouster from power or not being allowed to stage a sit-in in D-Chowk,” he asked Imran Khan.
He asked Imran Khan whether he wanted to come into power or just wanted an NRO for himself.
He said that if any video or audio recording was made to catch someone’s crime, then in his opinion it is not a crime. If it is used to blackmail someone, then it is a crime, he said, in reference to the alleged audio clip of Bushra Bibi, former prime minister Khan’s wife, and PTI social media head Dr Arsalan Khalid. “Who has recorded this audio, is exposing a crime,” he said.
The minister said the audio clip proved that Bushra Bibi, a lady of important status and she was the First Lady, was linking the entire opposition and the nation with treason over a letter, which the PTI chief claimed came from America.
“She is doing it to protect her corruption. She is explaining the procedure, with proper planning and training in the audio,” he said. If the PTI claimed that the recording was false, then they should deny it and demand a forensic examination of the clip.
To a question about dialogue with banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), he said the Parliamentary Committee on National Security had unanimously agreed to continue dialogue with the TTP. Talks with the TTP were still at a pre-dialogue stage, he said.
He said all political parties said that talks be held with the TTP.
During the meeting, the military leadership said that a committee should be formed comprising representatives of all political parties, to ensure that there was a political consensus and would backing the talks.
He said Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Faiz Hameed had given a very comprehensive and informative briefing to the committee.
Answering a question about the arrest of journalist Imran Riaz, Sananullah said the government was against curbing freedom of expression but if someone was talking beyond their professions and were presenting themselves as political workers and promoting the political narrative of a political party, then he should not use the shelter of a journalist. “Are you (Riaz) a rented journalist that without verifying you have started attacking us? asked interior minister.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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