BUNER: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday threatened to take to streets once again if Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief and deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif “continues to destroy the country just to save himself”.“Get ready,” the PTI chief told the youth at a public gathering in Buner on Sunday. He accused the ousted premier of attempting to provoke the army to ‘take over’. “If he continues to do this, then the PTI will be on the streets of Islamabad and we will not let him be successful in destroying the order of our country.”
“He keeps on asking: ‘Why was I removed?’,” Imran said, referring to the disqualification of former prime minister from public office by the Supreme Court through its July 28 verdict in Panama Papers case followed by a court-ordered accountability reference against him and his children in which he is set to be indicted on Oct 9 (today).
“The only reason why Nawaz Sharif and his ministers are attacking the judiciary and army is to hide his money laundering,” he claimed. “Because if Nawaz Sharif is punished for money laundering, then all his money, bank accounts and properties will be frozen. They will be sold and the money will return to Pakistan,” he said. “So he’s trying his best to save himself, that’s why he’s trying his best that the army takes over. He will destroy the country to save himself,” the PTI chief told the gathering.
Imran said that a revolutionary change was set to spread across the country by the next general elections in 2018.
Recalling his party’s endeavours for democracy, Khan said that PTI won a single seat in the National Assembly from Mianwali in 2002. “The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) expressed their confidence in my leadership and PTI has come up to their expectations today,” he added, while extending his gratitude to attendees for amassing at the public meeting venue on the party’s call.
He lambasted the ruling party for amending the constitution just to ensure the reinstatement of Nawaz Sharif as the head of PML-N.
Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Imran said the incumbent premier still takes orders from deposed PM. “Khaqan Abbasi is a puppet [who] considers Nawaz as his prime minister,” he said.
Civil-military relations have appeared tense following Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification, as the ex-PM in his ‘homecoming’ Grand Trunk Road rally railed against a ‘conspiracy’ to remove him, making repeated allegations against “a few” who had “conspired to overthrow the democratic government”.
Published in Daily Times, October 9th 2017.
