LAHORE: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb has said that if the writ of the state, judiciary and police is challenged, a civil war would erupt in the country.
While talking to media here on Sunday, she said that if the courts compromise the police writ, then there will be a civil war and every street of this country will have its own law.
She alleged that Imran Khan is not a politician but a terrorist; his residence was a bunker of terrorists and a laboratory for petrol bombs. If Imran was allowed to flout the law, gangs, hooligans and terrorists would emerge from every street and attack courts and police, she feared.
“If you think that by giving protection and this concession to a ‘Ladla’ (spoiled child) there will be no rule of law in this country, the minister asked.
Marriyum said the courts have been summoning a person since August 23 last year but he had not appeared and when the court ordered to arrest and produce the person, he instigated his followers to attack the judiciary.
It has never happened in the history of the country that a criminal was summoned in court and was provided with the facility to make attendance from his car, she said.
Imran Khan who ruled and dominated this country for four years had put all political opponents in death cells to settle political scores, she said. “He had not even spare sisters and daughters of political opponents and also got them arrested even from hospital beds.” Imran during his misrule destroyed the national economy, made the people unemployed and deprived them of two timely meals, she said.
During PTI rule, she said prices of edible items like flour and sugar, cooking oil and electricity and gas tariffs skyrocketed which hit the common man badly.
The minister alleged that this person had gone mad after losing power, and now from a ‘political terrorist’, he had become a terrorist attacking the state institutions.
She said when the PDM government came to power last year it had the power and authority to arrest Imran Khan but did not want Imran to allow him to play the victim card. Imran Khan used to say that his life was in danger, he was sick; he was an elderly person and could not appear in court, she recalled.
She said Imran also alleged that the government will kill him after arrest, and gave that reason for not appearing in court. The police were only following court orders, but PTI goons attacked the police and burnt police vans, she said.
The minister said Imran Khan was “a liar, terrorist and cowardly person” and the public saw everything yesterday that this cowardly ‘foreign agent’ did not want to appear before the court.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said the government had repeatedly told the court that Imran would attack the writ of the state and past few days’ actions of Imran Khan and his goons had vindicated this stance.
“Imran is intimidating the court with hooliganism and terrorism,” she maintained. Imran Khan, a cowardly person, travelled from Zaman Park Lahore to Islamabad Trial Court, armed with weapons. He attacked the court but did not appear before it.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the masses had seen what happened in Zaman Park before the Islamabad incident. It was the responsibility of police to protect the society but it had been attacked by a terrorist, she said, adding the police was the guarantor of society’s safety. She said that Imran attacked the guarantor of the safety of this society through his terrorist group.
She questioned if the PTI can still be termed a political party after time and again attacking the state and its institutions.
She recalled that the courts in the past used to cancel bails on a delay of one minute were now being attacked by one person with sticks, stones and petrol bombs and slingshots.
“Today the same courts are making this person sign the attendance register in his car,” she remarked.
She maintained that “mysterious silence” of justice system and law is becoming a threat to this country.
She said the court had seriously “undermined” the writ of police by giving relief to a person who inflicted head injuries to them, pelted stones and hurled petrol bombs on them and blazed their vehicles.
It was a collective responsibility of all the pillars of the state to establish its writ and if either of them failed to do so then the country would be left with only the law of jungle, she said, while playing another video clip during the news conference which showed as how the police vans were attacked and their personnel faced sheer resistance from the PTI workers in implementing the court’s orders.
The video also showed the stuff recovered by police from Zaman Park residence of Imran Khan while implementing the court’s order regarding search warrant.
She said the history of Pakistan was replete with incidents whereas arrest warrants of many political leaders were issued, but nobody had reacted and resisted like Imran Khan who did not look like a political leader from any angle.
She said ironically, Imran Khan got offended after his house was searched on the court orders, but in the same area of Model Town, the NAB team entered into house of the daughter of Shehbaz Sharif without any court order.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023