— Says powerful criminals get NROs easily to do away with their graft cases
— Slams caretaker govt for abolishing health card scheme in Punjab
LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former premier Imran Khan on Monday said that Pakistan cannot progress till double standards of law are done away with as the powerful people were committing all loot and plunder but they remained unpunished due to the successive NROs help them conveniently get their corruption cases quash.
Addressing the scholars via a video link from his Lahore residence on Monday, Khan said that the powerful people in Pakistan got NRO while it was easiest to catch the powerful people in with the West if they were corrupt.
He said that there was a rule of law in the West because they had true democracy which was for the benefit of their people. The state of Madinah made the people free spiritually. When the basic rights of people were given it helped to prosper society.
Imran said that the West was prosperous because of rule of law on the land. He said that everybody witnessed the ‘circus’ in Pakistan where the opponents were being framed in fake cases and put in jail.
He said that his government wanted to improve relations with Russia, because in the past; such foreign policies were designed that were meant to please other countries rather than Pakistan.
Imran Khan stated that the PTI government wanted to get cheap wheat and oil but when he came back from the Russian visit the former Army chief Gen Bjawa asked him to condemn Russia for the Ukraine attack.
“I said that India did not do that. We should also stay neutral like India,” he added. However, PTI Chairman stated that Bajwa arbitrarily condemned the Russian attack during an international security dialogue just to please the US.
He said that independent foreign policy defends the rights of people but in Pakistan, we make foreign policies for personal benefits and to pleas other powers. Imran Khan went on to say that Pakistan was indulged in the war on terror to please the US and to get dollars, resultantly we lost 80,000 people.
He stated that people get most of their education in English, but it was not appropriate to become a ‘mental slave’ of the West. He said that such a mindset loses the ability to produce things on its own.
He said that slaves have never done great things, “Mental slavery is more dangerous than physical slavery and accepting mental and cultural influence is also slavery.”
He came down hard on the incumbent caretaker government in Punjab for axing the health card program and said that the health card which was introduced in their tenure had one million health insurance. It was a protection for the poor people and the world applauded the initiative as well but unfortunately, the government rolled it back.
He said that the PTI government launched the health card program to give health coverage to middle and lower-middle classes who get buried in debt if an individual contracts a disease.
He said that due to the program, the private hospitals were ready to establish healthcare centers in the rural areas however everything has stopped now.
PTI Chairman negated the impression that it was necessary to generate money first before doing things for the underprivileged class like a welfare state. However, he stated that the truth was the exact opposite.
He laid down the importance of establishing a just system in society, terming it necessary for unleashing the true potential of its people. PTI Chairman said that the government didn’t want to hold elections in the country within 90 days which was the stipulated time in the Constitution.
“The government says that it has no money to hold the polls which is a contravention of the Constitution,” he said.
