ISLAMABAD: The incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founding chairman Imran Khan has warned that his party will stage countrywide protests if the government failed to implement the Supreme Court (SC) judgement regarding reserved seats.

If the government failed to implement the SC verdict on reserved seats and it tried to give an extension to Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa then his party will take to the streets, Khan said while informally talking to reporters at Adiala jail after the hearing of Al-Qadir Trust scam and Toshakhana cases.

Khan further said that he has given directions to his party leadership to be ready for a ‘street movement’. “Our situation is worse than Bangladesh. Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed had appointed her people as Army chief, Chief Justice and Police Chief. She had pushed Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and all political parties against the wall. All these things happened and are continuing in Pakistan,” he said.

The former premier said that they did not hold elections in two provinces by violating constitution. Now they are not executing the SC judgement on reserved seats and are again violating the constitution. He said that they have amended the Election Act to block the way of SC judgement on reserved seats and now they wanted to get a two-third majority to amend the constitution.

To a question, he said that neither he has any contact with anyone nor holding negotiations with anyone. I have authorised Mehmood Khan Achakzai to hold dialogue with politicians. PTI will not hold negotiations, he said, adding that if PTI holds negotiations with politicians then it means that we have accepted the present government.

Responding to another query, he said that if they want to reject our demands they can do so, adding he is holding dialogue for the sake of the country. The popularity of PTI is increasing day by day, if they do not want to talk to me, do not do it, as I have no haste, he said.

PTI’s founding chairman said that a crackdown had been launched before general elections against his party in the name of May 9 riots. Half of our leadership had been jailed and half had gone underground, he said, adding that their plan had completely failed on February 8.

Earlier, the Accountability Court judge, Nasir Javed Rana, while hearing the £190 million National Crime Agency (NCA) scam commonly known as the Al-Qadir Trust case against Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, rejected Khan and his wife’s plea seeking to present National Accountability Bureau (NAB) board meeting minutes regarding the case before the court. During the hearing, Khan and his wife were produced before the court. Khan’s lawyers, Zaheer Abbas and Usman Gull, as well as, NAB deputy prosecutor general Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi and prosecutor Amjad Pervaiz appeared before the court. During the hearing, Khan’s counsel did not complete cross-examination of the investigation officer (IO) Umair Rathore of the case.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024