ISLAMABAD - The government on Sunday made it clear that it will prevent the PTI from paralysing the federal capital on Wednesday.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the government did not object to peaceful protests, but a lockdown of the capital won’t be allowed. He claimed that the closing of roads to the capital had stopped 1,200 armed protesters from reaching Islamabad.
“Lockdown of the capital is not just a crime against the government, it’s a crime against the state,” said the minister.
Justifying police action against PTI supporters, Nisar said protection of fundamental rights of the citizen is responsibility of the government.
He said Khyber Pakhtukhwa CM should not have made closure of motorway an issue of a division between Punjabis and Pakhtuns. “Can a provincial government announce war against federal government and occupy the capital,” he questioned in reference to PTI’s planned march from KP to Islamabad.
Vowing to expose the ‘mischievous mind’ behind a ‘false’ news published in Dawn, Nisar said former information minister Pervaiz Rashid was removed from his post for his failure to stop its publication.
Being a senior cabinet member, he said, he was tasked by the prime minister to hold an initial inquiry into the matter. During initial investigations, he said, it was found that the news was false and leaked without keeping in mind national interests.
“Some documented and undocumented records involving Pervaiz Rashid say the reporter contacted him for comments about a story regarding Shahbaz Sharif and the ISI chief. (And) Pervaiz Rashid called the reporter into his office,” he said.
“Rashid should not have let Dawn’s story go into print... After investigation, I reached the conclusion that Pervaiz Rashid should have told the reporter that this story is wrong; don’t publish it in the national interest. Or, he should have spoken to Zafar Abbas (Dawn Editor), Dawn management or the government. So there is a lapse,” Nisar said shedding light on minister’s removal.
He said there is an agreement that whoever has leaked this false news should be brought in front of the nation. Pakistan’s national narrative was compromised by the false report, he said, and reiterated the ‘mischievous mind’ behind this story should be exposed as military has been put in the dock wrongly. He said some more names would be added in the inquiry committee.
However, he said no data was available on who fed the false news report to the journalist. The only source for establishing who did that was the journalist himself, Nisar said and appealed to Cyril Almeida to cooperate in this regard.
Nisar maintained all information given to Dawn about an altercation between Shehbaz Sharif and the ISI chief, or the foreign secretary’s comments that Pakistan stands isolated in the world were false.
He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief General Raheel Sharif were briefed regarding probe into the story when all three met in Quetta a day after the police academy attack.
“We made a call and went to Army House… not in secret. It was no late-night clandestine meeting. There was no bitter exchange between the ISI chief and CM Shehbaz. This is not true.”
He said there had “always been consensus” between the civilian and military leadership to indiscriminately act against the non-state actors.
Nisar said no meeting on the national security had taken place on the 3rd of this month, as reported in the newspaper. He said a meeting did take place on fourth of this month in which the foreign secretary talked about realignment of Pakistan in the region, but the newspaper’s quoting him as saying Pakistan was being isolated in the world was totally wrong.
“The foreign secretary did say India is trying to isolate Pakistan, but he never said Pakistan is isolated.”
Nisar said the prime minister would finalise a high-level inquiry committee comprising intelligence officials and other senior officials to identify who conceived and fabricated the story and fed it to the journalist.