LAHORE: Imran Khan was visibly angry by the ECP’s decision to postpone the April 30 Punjab Assembly elections till October. He questioned how the situation would change in five to six months.
“Will the economic or security situation improve by then?” he wondered, noting that the facts on the ground indicated that the situation will worsen in October.
“Does this imply that the ECP would delay the elections even further?” he said, noting that the nation now looked to the Supreme Court to preserve the Pakistani Constitution.
The former prime minister told the media that if the government ever decided to break the Constitution. Anything may happen in the future. He stated that Ziaul Haq had announced he would hold elections within 90 days. Afterward extended the timeline to eleven years.
Mr. Khan stated that the PTI in particular and the people of Pakistan in general turning to the Supreme Court to take action against the “rule of the jungle” since party officials and activists arrested and their locations concealed.
Pointing to proceedings against PDM coalition politicians, the PTI leader stated that both the PPP and the PML-N initiated around 95% of these lawsuits against one other when in office.
Nawaz Sharif captured in the Panama Papers case, while Ishaq Dar and Shehbaz Sharif’s son-in-law fled during the PML-N administration, according to Mr. Khan, who said the PTI had not filed any charges against them. “Just one complaint filed against Shehbaz Sharif under the PTI administration,” he claimed.
The PTI head stated that the entire nation had known him for the previous 50 years, despite the fact that over 40 terrorism-related charges had been filed against him. “Does anyone in the country believe that I’ve perpetrated forty acts of terrorism?” he asked, adding that the nation was losing faith in the current administration.
Banana Republic
Mr. Khan stated that the country had been transformed into a “banana republic” in which law and justice were nonexistent. Also, he lamented the treatment of his nephew, attorney Hassan Niazi. “He is granted bail in one case and arrested in another,” stated the leader of the PTI.
In a video message to encourage public participation in the party’s rally at the Minar-i-Pakistan, Mr. Khan announced that he would hold this year’s first public rally at the Minar-i-Pakistan at 9pm on Saturday (today), where he would also present a plan to pull the country out of its current crises.
Relating to his assertion that Punjab’s inspector general of police intended to assassinate him, the PTI chairman asserted that senior police officers had informed him of the “death plot” and advised him to go to Gilgit-Baltistan or Azad Jammu and Kashmir, where the PTI is in control.
“Life and death are in Allah’s hands. Anybody wishes to kill me must come to my apartment in Zaman Park, Lahore, and target me. “I will not flee out of dread of death,” he declared.
Mr. Khan, expressing scepticism towards a joint investigation team constituted by the government to investigate 10 FIRs registered in Lahore, advised the administration, “If you are serious about forming a JIT, you should organise the team under the supervision of the chief justice.”