ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb Wednesday said PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s ‘Jail Bharo’ campaign was only for the helpless party workers as it was, in fact, a ‘Jail se Bacho” campaign for the leadership.
It was an irony that Imran Khan had obtained protective bail for himself, but at the same time he was asking the innocent PTI workers to court arrest, she said while addressing a press conference.
The minister said instead of leading the court arrest drive, Imran Khan was apparently taking refuge in a bunker at Zaman Park in Lahore with a plaster on his leg.
Terming the ‘court arrest movement’ a conspiracy against the country, she said it should have commenced with the arrest of Imran Khan, who was trying to escape from accountability through such tactics.
The minister said for the last nine months, Imran Khan had been changing his stance over the dismissal of his government by negating his own statements one after the other.
The incompetent and inefficient former rulers had conspired against the country and ruined its economy since they were involved in foreign funding and Tosha Khana theft, she added.
Imran Khan, she said, ruled at the federal level for four years and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for 10 years but miserably failed to deliver to the people.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said during his tenure as prime minister, Imran Khan misused the ‘state power’ to fill his pockets with illegal gains and benefits.
The PTI leadership, she added, sent their political opponents to jail and used public funds to spread baseless propaganda against their political opponents. However, despite having all the state power for four years, they could not prove even a single penny of corruption against them (opponents).
The entire Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership, including Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Shehbaz Sharif, and Hamza Shehbaz were placed in death cells to settle political scores, she said.
Marriyum said: “When they could not prove any charges (against the opponents), they pushed the country towards the economic disaster, rendered youth unemployed, and did compromise on the Kashmir issue.”
The minister said the PTI rulers destroyed each and every sector of the country and today the people were suffering from its consequences.
She said Imran Khan Niazi had started his narrative nine months ago first with a cipher
conspiracy, but he recently confessed that no foreign conspiracy was hatched against his government.
He had embarked on a long march from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa towards Islamabad, during which his followers attacked and injured the police personnel, she added.
Imran Khan, she noted, was fully aware that neither there was any global conspiracy behind his ouster from the government nor any such move was harboured in the United States.
Castigating Imran Khan, the minister said during his ever-changing narrative of the foreign conspiracy, he first blamed Nawaz Sharif, then Mohsin Naqvi and then General (retd) Qamar Bajwa.
The PTI chief during his country-wide country in the last nine months did play a new ‘film’ every day, and now he was confessing that there had been no external conspiracy against his government, she added.
The minister said the present government did work round the clock to renegotiate the International Monetary Fund programme, which had earlier been okayed with Imran Khan’s signatures.
It was Imran Khan, she added, who had handed over the country’s economy to the IMF. “Every day, we are going through the ordeal of how to get the people of Pakistan out of the economic disaster, caused by the Imran Khan-led regime.”
Now whenever the situation started improving in the country, Imran Khan announced a new drama to destabilize the entire process, she maintained.
She said when the no-confidence motion was tabled against him, Imran Khan started the story of the cipher, and now when there was a hope of improvement of the country’s economy, he had started new antics.
“Every day the PTI leaders take U-turns abruptly changing narratives and stance”, she said. It was evident from the fact that Imran Khan, who had started the ‘court arrest’ drive had been on the run since November 14, 2014, in the foreign funding case.
“This person has never joined any investigation by the Election Commission of Pakistan, Federal Investigation Agency, National Accountability Bureau and sessions courts because he is scared of the consequences of being involved in the theft.”
Imran Khan, she alleged, had used charity money for political purposes and for hatching
a conspiracy against the country.
Marriyum said the PTI chief was also absconding in the Tosha Khana case as he had stolen the watches and sold the same by misusing his authority.
The Toshakhana theft, foreign funding, diamond transactions, cipher story, and Al-
Qadir Trust scam were the cases in which Imran Khan had no answer, and that was why he did not appear before any court or institution for investigations and every time got the next date.
The courts used to summon Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz every now and then, and they complied with the orders, but Imran Khan did not bother to appear despite being summoned many times, she said.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi came a few minutes late in the court on Tuesday, his non-bailable arrest warrants were issued, but Imran had been showing no respect to the courts but getting relief every time.
She said that Imran called his arrest a political vendetta, which was an attempt to mislead the people.
She said that Imran Khan will have to answer the charge-sheet against him. The person was being summoned by the court, FIA and NAB but instead of facing the cases he was starting ‘court arrest drive’ which ironically commenced with his own protective bail.
This was not a ‘jail-filling movement’, rather it was meant to avoid the jail, she said and added now the narrative of the global conspiracy was over; the narrative of imported government was over, and they had no answer in the Toshakhana case, no answer to the five-carat diamond allegation, no explanation for the land of Al-Qadir Trust.
The minister said Imran and his party were trying to create political instability because the government was now mending its foreign relations and fixing the economy.
Today, she said, the China Development Bank announced a 700 million dollars loan for Pakistan, and the same day Imran launched to fill the court arrest drive to disrupt the process of economic revival.
It was not a court arrest drive but simply a conspiracy against the country, she added.
She said now Imran Khan was claiming that the present government had burdened the middle class, and added rather it was during his tenure, the middle class was forced to buy one kilo of sugar in a long queue for Rs 150.
Replying to the questions of media persons, the minister said that the “selected PM”
had failed to deliver in his four years tenure and today the masses were bearing the brunt of his flawed policies.
Imran Khan, she said, had ruined the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the economy and denied employment opportunities for the young generation.
On the contrary, she reminded, the PML-N during its government tenure from 2013-18 built a network of motorways and highways, overcame the chronic power loadshedding issue, and revived the national economy.
To a question, she said Bushra Bibi was “the key to fill the coffers of the PTI”. She was not a housewife, but was an adviser to the PTI leader who helped him in theft and fraud.
Imran Khan had made Bani Gala a den of corruption, she said.
To another question, Marriyum said the PTI chairman used to term Pervaiz Ilahi ‘the biggest robber of Punjab’, and ironically that person had now joined the PTI.
She said that Imran was deliberately creating a law and order situation to save his own skin, but at the cost of national interest.
She sarcastically said that the PTI had announced that in Lahore, a city of over 12 million population, only 200 party leaders and workers would court arrest today and while only 1200 persons would court arrest from all over Punjab, with over 120 million population which fully exposed its popularity.
She said the arrest of a person for his crimes could not be termed a political victimization and the present coalition government did not believe in political vendetta. It was Imran Khan, who while in power did not spare even sisters and daughters of his political opponents.
Imran Khan would no more be allowed to play the victimization card, she added.
