LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has denied his involvement in the murder of a Baloch Supreme Court lawyer (advocate Abdul Razzaq Shar), saying he was being implicated in a murder case with a clear intention of removing him from politics.
The former Prime Minister has been nominated in the murder case of the Supreme Court lawyer who was shot dead by armed motorcyclists on Airport Road in Quetta a few days ago. A first information report (FIR) was registered on the complaint of the slain lawyer’s son, advocate Siraj Ahmed, in Quetta.
While addressing his supporters through a video link here on Wednesday, he said he was bewildered by the murder case filed against him, saying he has never been involved in such a heinous crime in the past nor he has a criminal history. The person murdered had filed a frivolous treason case against him after accusing him of violating Article 6. I did not even know about this case since I had been entangled in many other cases, he added.
“My legal team had told me that the treason case has no substance and hence, it would not hold in the court of law. For this reason, I did not give any importance to this case,” he said, implying that he had no motive to go after the lawyer.
Talking about the treason case, Khan explained that he had dissolved the National Assembly and called for fresh elections after National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had refused to allow a no-confidence motion on the pretext of a cypher that exposed a ‘foreign conspiracy’ to remove his government.
He also pointed out that he had dissolved the National Assembly before the no-confidence motion was tabled. “The deceased lawyer accused me of violating the Constitution by calling for the elections, but I had dissolved the National Assembly after the Speaker gave the ruling, which was later invalidated by the Supreme Court. I had done nothing wrong and hence the case had no weight,” he added.
Coming to the murder case, he claimed that the lawyer was murdered at 9.30 pm and after just four hours he (Khan) was implicated in the murder case despite earlier the lawyer’s family stating that he (the lawyer) was murdered due to a family enmity. He expressed shock for being accused of murder without any investigation.
He accused the IGP Balochistan of pressuring the deceased’s son to issue another statement that Imran Khan had ordered the killing of his father. “The IG kept the lawyer’s son in his custody overnight to extract the statement,” he claimed.
He said that the intention was clear behind the numerous cases fabricated against him; tomorrow he was going to Islamabad to appear in the court and he was mentally prepared to be arrested again.
“However, such foul tactic would not deter me and I will never back down from ‘true freedom’ and neither should the people of Pakistan. Our fundamental rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, were completely violated today while the rule of law has been decimated in this country. The kind of violence and fascism we were witnessing today was unprecedented. I am ready to go to jail, but I would never submit to this unjust system; the day you bow down to it you would have no future,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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