Imran Khan, according to Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, is not a politician but a “terrorist,” and his Zaman Park home is a terrorist hideout and a facility for making petrol bombs.
Speaking at a press conference in this location, the information minister warned that civil war would break out in the nation if the authority of the state, judiciary, and police were challenged. According to Marriyum Aurangzeb, the police’s role is to protect the courts, who are the guardians of justice.
If Imran was allowed to flout the law, gangs, hooligans and terrorists would emerge from every street and attack courts and police, she said. “If you think that by giving protection and this concession to a ‘Ladla’ there will be rule of law in this country, then you are wrong,” the minister said.
Marriyum said the courts have been summoning a person since August 23 last year but he did not appear and when the court ordered to arrest and produce the person, he instigated his followers to attack the judiciary.
It has never happened in the history of the country that a criminal was summoned in court and was provided with the facility to make attendance from his car. Imran Khan who ruled and dominated this country for four years had put all political opponents in death cells to settle political scores. He did not even spare sisters and daughters of political opponents and also got them arrested even from hospital beds.
Imran during his misrule destroyed the national economy, made the people unemployed and deprived them of two timely meals. During PTI rule, she said prices of edible items like flour and sugar, cooking oil and electricity and gas tariffs skyrocketed which hit the common man badly. The minister alleged that this person had gone mad after losing power, and now from a political terrorist, he had become a terrorist attacking the state institutions. She said when the PDM government came to power last year, it had the power and authority to arrest Imran Khan but did not want Imran to allow him to play the victim card.
She said that Imran Khan was booked in corruption cases, Toshakhana gifts theft, Tyrian White paternity case as law had taken its course without any interference from the present government. The minister said as Imran had no answer to the allegations against him, he had set the country on fire through arson and attacking the police.
Imran Khan used to say that his life was in danger, he was sick, he was an elderly person and could not appear in court. She said Imran also alleged that the government will kill him after arrest, gave that reason for not appearing in court.
The police were only following court orders, but PTI goons attacked the police and burnt police vans she said. “Yesterday it was proved that claim of Imran Khan’s threat to life is bogus and if he is sick, there is a plan to kill him, then what happened yesterday,”, she questioned. The minister said Imran Khan was a liar, “terrorist and cowardly person and the public saw everything yesterday that this cowardly foreign agent did not want to appear before the court”. Marriyum Aurangzeb said the government had repeatedly told the court that Imran would attack the writ of the state and past few days actions of Imran Khan and his goons had vindicated its stance.
“Imran is intimidating the court with hooliganism and terrorism,” she maintained. This[Imran Khan] cowardly person from Zaman Park, Lahore to Islamabad Trial Court, armed with weapons attacked but did not appear in the court. The police which was trying to implement the court orders, was attacked by Imran Khan’s violent followers, she said. Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the masses had seen what happened in Zaman Park before the Islamabad incident. It was the responsibility of police to protect the society but it had been attacked by a terrorist, she said adding the police was the guarantor of society’s safety, adding that Imran attacked the guarantor of the safety of this society through his terrorist group. She questioned if the PTI can still be termed a political party after time and again attacking the state and its institutions. She recalled that the courts in the past used to cancel bails on a delay of one minute were now being attacked by one person with sticks, stones and petrol bombs and slingshots.
“Today the same courts are making this person sign the attendance register in the car,” she remarked. She maintained that mysterious silence of “justice system and law is becoming a threat to this country”. She said that Imran used GP police against Punjab Police and Punjab police against the Capital police. The minister said Imran, the terrorist was breaking the law and the Constitution and throwing into the dustbin the writ of the state. She said this concession was given to this goon to start attacking police from Lahore and continue making a mockery of law till reaching Islamabad. She said the court had seriously “undermined” the writ of police by giving relief to a person who inflicted head injuries, pelted stones and petrol bombs on them and blazed their vehicles.
It was a collective responsibility of all the pillars of the state to establish its writ and if either of them failed to do so then the country would be left with only the law of jungle, she said, while playing another video clip during the news conference which showed as how the police vans were attacked and their personnel faced sheer resistance from the PTI workers in implementing the court’s orders. The video also showed the stuff recovered by police from Zaman Park residence of Imran Khan while implementing the court’s order regarding search warrant. The minister said the police found petrol bombs, kalashnikoves, weapons, catapults, acrylic balls and terrorists while searching Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence which nowadays gave a look of the “terrorists’ bunker”.
She said the history of Pakistan was replete with incidents whereas arrest warrants of many political leaders were issued, but nobody had reacted and resisted like Imran Khan who did not look like a political leader from any angle. Marriyum said one of the PTI leaders Yasmin Rashid in her leaked audio was heard urging the party workers to buy and compile petrol bombs, batons and others weapons for attacking the police. She said ironically, Imran Khan got offended after his house was searched on the court orders, but in the same area of Model Town, the NAB team entered into house of the daughter of Shehbaz Sharif without any court order. On his order, Maryam Nawaz Sharif house was attacked with containers and bulldozers, she said, accusing Imran Khan of sending police to her bedroom without any search warrant. She said Imran Khan, who did not even own her daughter, had no right to talk about the sanctity of home as it was he who himself hid terrorists, weapons, firearms and other weapons in his home to attack the state.
He attacked the court with armed people yesterday just to prevent his indictment in the Toshakhana case, she said, reiterating that Imran Khan would never present himself before the court. She said all the PMLN leaders including Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza Shehbaz, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Salman Rafique, Hanif Abbasi and others presented them before the court during the fascist rule of Imran Khan and never resorted to violation of law and Constitution. Respectable people presented themselves before the court, but a gangster and robber like Imran Khan used delaying tactics to evade accountability, she said terming Imran Khan a “liar and fraud” who had nothing to prove his innocence in the court. “There is a question mark for the judiciary and courts whether they want some sort of jungle law in the country where a person attacks the state and police in front of the high court and supreme court….,” she said, adding the relief given to Imran Khan yesterday was hard to be found in political and judicial history of the country.
She said Imran Khan obtained eight bails in eight minutes the other day from the courts which was the fastest relief ever received by anybody in history. “Imran Khan is a gangster and terrorist who is challenging the writ of the judiciary and state,” she said, adding he would be held accountable in all the cases at all cost. At the start, the minister said that on the instructions of the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, distribution of free flour to poor people has now started in Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad as well. She said the supply of free-of-cost flour will also be started in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. The government was cleaning up the economic mess created by the Imran Khan regime day and night which had pushed the country at the brink of default. The minister said that Imran Khan had violated the IMF programme last year and the PDM government resumed talks with IMF on tough conditions signed by Imran.
