ISLAMABAD: PTI founder Imran Khan wrote a second “open letter” to Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir on Saturday, asserting he had written the previous letter with “good intentions for the betterment of the country and the nation, so that the growing gap between the army and the people could be reduced, but the response was given with extreme frivolity and irresponsibility”.
Imran claimed that 90 per cent of the people would support his previous letter’s points if public opinion was taken on them.
In the letter posted on Imran’s X account today, he complaining about the alleged mistreatment in prison, saying: “The prison administration … has done every injustice to me to increase pressure on me while violating basic human rights. I have been kept in a death cell. I was kept in complete lock-up for 20 days where even sunlight did not reach me.”
“For five days, the electricity in my cell was turned off and I was in complete darkness. My exercise equipment and TV were taken away and I was not even allowed to have newspapers. They even withhold books whenever they want. Apart from these 20 days, I was again kept in lock-up for 40 hours. My sons have been made to talk to me only three times in the last six months.”
The PTI founder talked at length about his criticism of recent legal and political developments in the country and the issues being faced by his party and workers.
“All this is against our traditions and due to this, hatred against the army has increased a lot among the people, which if corrected in time, is better for both the army and the country, otherwise irreparable losses may have to be borne from all this,” he reiterated in line with his first letter.
Concluding his letter, Imran said: “It is essential for the stability and security of the country that the gap between the army and the people be reduced, and there is only one way to reduce this growing gap, and that is for the army to return to its constitutional boundaries, separate itself from politics and fulfil its assigned responsibilities, and this task will have to be done by the army itself, otherwise this growing gap will become fault lines in the term of national security.”
On February 3, the incarcerated PTI founder penned a letter to the army chief, urging a “reevaluation policy” to stop growing distance between the military and the public. In his letter, the army needed to reevaluate its policy to win over the public with reasons and suggestions proposed by Imran to remedy the situation.
Security sources, however, said the letter had not been received by the military and dismissed reports in the media about the existence of such a letter. They claimed that the military establishment was not interested in receiving such a letter.
