LAHORE: Rana Sanauallah Khan rejected the claim the cases against Azam Swati were a part of “political revenge”, who is accused of sending out tweets critical of the army, observing that the senator of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party targeted “two institutions” and not the entire government.
Addressing a news conference, the minister for interior, who is a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart, said: “If we wanted to file cases against them [PTI leaders] or wanted to treat them how they treated us. We would have filed cases of heroin against them.”
He added the barrage of mysterious complaints filed against Swati was registered in “accordance with the law.” “Just yesterday, the Balochistan High Court (BHC) quashed cases against him. On the other hand, we have contested our cases for years,” he lamented.
Moving on to the alleged audio leak of former finance minister Shaukat Tarin, Khan said the finance czar “talked about sabotaging” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
“They don’t have the authority [of the government] so they are bent upon destroying the economy,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t the cases against the members of the coalition government be closed since they are being closed after litigation?” he asked.
Referring to the defamation case against Daily Mail, a British newspaper, related to corruption allegations against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Khan claimed the newspaper accepted its fault and apologised for it.
He claimed that the newspaper made that mistake at former federal minister Shahzad Akbar’s behest.
“Imran Khan leveled false allegations against others while he himself was involved in corruption,” he alleged, adding the party should also apologise to the nation for false cases.
Talking about the talks between the government and the PTI, Khan said the government was ready for “unconditional talks”. He added President Dr Arif Alvi was playing a role to facilitate a dialogue between the two groups.
“This was also done before by Parvez Khattak, Asad Qaiser, Fawad Chaudhry, and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, however, the former prime minister did not listen to them,” claimed the minister.
When asked about disgraced former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s return from London, the minister said the party has requested him to be present for the next election campaign, and the former prime minister has accepted it.
He expressed hope that the “institution” will stand by its commitment to stay “apolitical”. “Army is an organised institution where an individual’s policy doesn’t work, that there would be [former army chief] Bajwa sahib or [current] Asim Munir’s policy,” the minister said.
He said it was the institution’s decision that the army will stay ‘apolitical’. It was the institution’s policy and it still is,” he added.
A petition has been filed seeking the acquittal of Khan in the drug case against him. His counsel, Farhad Shah, during the hearing, informed the court that two narcotics officials denied the allegations against the minister.
The petition claimed the case had been filed on the political vendetta, hence, the minister should be acquitted.
