ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said the government is mulling legal action against protesting PTI and PAT leaders, indicating that the ruling party wants to end the current political impasse through courts.
Replying to a question at a news conference on Tuesday about the government’s plan to deal with the protesters holding sit-ins in Islamabad, he said the responsibility to protect the constitution and the democratic system lay with the parliament as well as courts.
The minister said the government was in the process of collecting evidence against PTI chief Imran Khan and PAT chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri to submit them in courts.
“Video footages of their speeches will also be presented,” he added.
“We want courts to investigate the allegations (levelled against the government by PTI and PAT leadership in their speeches). We will unmask them in courts and curb this lawlessness,” the minister said.
Mr Rashid said that Mr Khan had accused retired Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday and a Military Intelligence (MI) brigadier of having been involved in the election rigging. But, he claimed, when the government offered the PTI team to include this allegation in the terms of reference (ToRs) of the proposed judicial commission to investigate the rigging, the PTI leaders backed off.
“We want to resolve the crisis in a civilised manner,” the minister said when asked why the government was not removing the protesters and not taking steps to establish its writ which was being challenged by the PTI and the PAT leadership for over a month.
The minister alleged that the plan to “remove the elected government” and destabilise the country had been prepared at a secret meeting between Mr Khan and Dr Qadri in London.
He asked Dr Qadri and Mr Khan to tell the nation why each of them had been in a hurry to reach Islamabad first after leaving Lahore when they began long march on Aug 14. He claimed to have a lot of information which he would disclose at an appropriate time.
The information minister asked Mr Khan why he had not issued any show-cause notice to the party’s elected president Makhdoom Javed Hashmi who had publicly levelled serious allegations against him.
“Why are you not responding to his (Hashmi’s) allegations? Why are you hesitating to issue a show-cause notice to Mr Hashmi?”
He regretted that after the failure of his politics of agitation, Mr Khan had now started talking about the possibility of civil war in the country. He said that the people of Pakistan had already rejected his call for civil disobedience and even leaders of his own party were regularly paying taxes. He also claimed a significant increase in foreign remittances despite Mr Khan’s call for not sending the money through banks.
He said Mr Khan claimed the other day that he would disclose on Saturday the names of the killers of two members of the National Assembly, but he failed to do so.
The minister challenged Mr Khan to disclose the names of 17 people, who he (Imran) claimed had been killed by police and bodies of 14 of them were hidden at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. “Where are the heirs of those 14 people?” he asked.
He said Mr Khan had claimed that ballot papers had been printed in a private printing press in Urdu Bazar, Lahore, but the owner of the printing press had gone to the court against him. “This is a very good chance for Imran to prove his allegations in the court,” he added.
Mr Rashid said that Mr Khan never uttered a word of sympathy of army and police personnel who had sacrificed their lives in the war on terror, but had expressed sympathy for terrorists. It was, he said, evident from the fact that he gave the call for the long march on the day the army launched a military operation in North Waziristan.
Mr Rashid said that PAT and PTI leaders first claimed responsibility for the attack on the PTV building, but when cases were registered they distanced themselves from the attackers. He also accused Mr Khan of attacking police to get some arrested people released.
The minister said that Mr Khan had started levelling allegations, without any proof, against the prime minister, the chief minister of Punjab, ministers and even journalists. He challenged Mr Khan to give the name of any journalist or anchorpersons who he had accused of receiving cash or other favours from the government.
