ISLAMABAD: The narcotics case against Rana Sanaullah Khan was masterminded by Imran Khan, then-prime minister, and not the general who was heading the watchdog agency at the time, the minister for interior claimed.
In July 2019, Sanaullah, who was in opposition at the time, was arrested for drug possession by anti-narcotics police, which was then headed by retired Maj. Gen. Muhammad Arif Malik, on the motorway linking Islamabad with Lahore.
Firdous Aashiq Awan, then-minister for information, said 15 kilogrammes of heroin was seized from his vehicle. The case is ongoing and, if convicted, Sanaullah could face the death penalty.
At the time, Sanaullah’s lawyer, Azim Nazir Tarar, told Reuters the accusations were “ridiculous”.
In July, he revealed he had spoken to Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the army chief, regarding the alleged role of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) in the case.
“When I was in the opposition, in one of the briefings [in National Assembly] I complained to Gen. Bajwa that a false case has been registered against me. He categorically rejected the notion that his institution was intervening in this case,” he said while talking in an interview on the Dawn News programme “Live with Adil Shahzeb”.
Sanaullah said that when he was out on bail, a person, whose identity he did not disclose, associated with the army chief met him and asked him to submit a formal request about the case and the military would conduct an inquiry.
“I submitted an application not only to the army chief but also to the chief justice, and I think based on that inquiry Gen. Bajwa said that it was a wrong notion [that the army was influencing the case],” he said.
To a question whether he believed the army was behind all the cases of political victimisation of the country’s political leadership, the minister said he was “convinced” it was “nobody but Imran Khan, he is responsible for all of this”.
He added that apart from Khan, Shehryar Khan Afridi, a former minister for narcotics, was “used” and even Gen. Malik was also persuaded to become complicit in the case.
