LAHORE: Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan has said the “dacoits in Punjab” have changed the entire team of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to get bail in all the corruption cases against them, and if courts acquit them of the charges then the people involved in petty cases should be freed from jails too.

The former prime minister was addressing a lawyers’ convention organised by the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) on Wednesday.

He urged the lawyers to join him with full zeal in his struggle for a “greater Pakistan”, to get independence from “American hegemony” and bury the “dacoits”.

Mr Khan was of the view that no struggle in Pakistan had succeeded until the lawyers had joined it.

He also said he would announce the date for a long march to Islamabad in his next public meeting to be held in Multan next Friday.

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He said the current rulers wanted to adopt different methods to stop him from organising the long march to Islamabad; that was why he wanted the legal fraternity to support him in his struggle.

The “Tehreek-e-Pakistan (freedom movement)” was led by a lawyer and the movement for independence of the judiciary also succeeded due to a lawyers’ movement, he said. Therefore, the lawyers should join hands with him in the struggle for an “independent Pakistan”.

The PTI chief reiterated that the present rulers were “imposed on the country through a foreign conspiracy” and it was the people’s democratic right to get rid of them in a peaceful manner.

He said there could be no prosperity in any country without rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution and added that most of the Muslim countries were facing this problem.

He had named his party ‘Tehreek-e-Insaf’ because God wanted to see justice prevail on the planet, he added.

Among others who spoke on the occasion were Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Ali Muhammad Khan, Senator Ali Zafar and LBA President Rao Sami.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022