LAHORE - Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Saturday appealed to the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court to establish a full court
commission to investigate the firing incident aimed at Imran Khan and his long
march’s convoy in Wazirabad and the
ensuing allegations levelled by the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
Addressing a press conference in Lahore, the premier said that the com mission of the Supreme Court
should probe the allegations
of Imran Khan against him, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah
and a high-ranking army officer.
“I will immediately write a letter to the chief justice Supreme
Court for the investigation by
the full court commission,” the
prime minister said. The same
full court commission should
also investigate the murder of
[senior journalist] Arshad Sharif and the circumstances surrounding the tragic incident, he
added. He assured that the federal government would fully
support the commission.
Shehbaz Sharif said it was unfortunate that Imran Khan had
falsely alleged that the prime
minister, interior minister and
an important officer of the institution hatched a conspiracy
against him. He said as a prime
minister it was his responsibility to play his role when people
were misled with repeated lies
to take the country to the brink
of disaster. He said that the nation deserves the right to know
the fact and it is need of the hour
to ascertain the reality in order
to eradicate anarchy sabotage
related activities in the society.
While condemning the politics of Imran Khan, the prime
minister said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman has
been continuing the malicious
campaign against institutions,
which is helping to fulfil the
enemy’s agenda. He said Pakistan’s Armed forces have rendered matchless sacrifices in
the war against terrorism. He
said the PTI chief is misleading
the nation by levelling false allegations, spreading propaganda and speaking blatant lies. He
also demanded the PTI leader
to produce evidence before demanding resignations of senior
officials. The Prime Minister
said the PTI government registered fake cases against its political opponents. Condemning
the Wazirabad incident of firing
on PTI’s Long March, the Prime
Minister said that the Interior
Ministry has been directed to
investigate the incident.
He said that as the security of
the Long March is responsibility of the Punjab government,
however, it is a big question
mark that no FIR has been registered so far. The Prime Minister raised the question that why
Imran Khan was taken to Shaukat Khanum Hospital immediately after the Wazirabad incident. He said extremism in the
politics cannot be tolerated and
the levelling baseless allegations on institutions should also
be stopped. He said Imran Khan
used the killing of senior journalist Arshad Sharif for political objectives and also used religious card against his political
opponents. Shehbaz Sharif also
prayed for early recovery of PTI
chief Imran Khan and other injured persons.
Meanwhile, in a tweet, Prime
Minister Shehbaz Sharif said
that the government has decided to request honorable Chief
Justice of Pakistan to form a full
court commission to investigate
PTI Chief Imran Khan’s allegations. He said Imran Khan Niazi
habitually uses baseless allegations and lies to spread anarchy.
“Imran Niazi habitually uses
baseless allegations & lies to
spread anarchy. Govt has decided to request honourable Chief
Justice of Pakistan to form a full
court commission to investigate his allegations. Let the people see through his game plan
to undermine national institutions.” The prime minister said
Imran Khan had his government
in Punjab, his own chief minister, the province’s bureaucracy
and Special Branch so he should
ask them to hold an inquiry into
the incident of Wazirabad attack. “Imran Niazi should provide evidence to prove his allegations of involvement of the
three persons including him
(Shehbaz), in the attack,” he asserted. “I have no right to remain the prime minister for a
second if evidence is presented about my involvement in
the incident in Wazirabad,” the
PM added. He said the country could only move forward if
truth and lies were sifted and
the people of Pakistan had the
right to know the facts. He said
Imran Niazi was telling the
“worst lies and hatching nefarious conspiracies against the national institutions”. Meanwhile,
a series of past videos were
shown on the occasion to shed
light on the contradictory statements and erratic behaviour of
Imran Khan, maligning the judiciary and the leadership of
armed forces. Shehbaz said joy
erupted in India when people there came to know about
the statements of Imran Khan
against the country’s top institutions. “This person (Imran) is
an embodiment of lies and has
been trying his utmost to mislead people of Pakistan,” he said.
He said the formation of the full
court commission was vital to
help the country move forward
and strengthen parliamentary
democracy whose foundations
were shaken by the unfounded
allegations. He stressed that religion card should not be used
for fomenting political violence.
He recalled that similarly, Imran Khan did politics on the incident of Model Town, Lahore.
“The case of Arshad Sharif was
also used by Imran for political
mileage,” he added. Now Imran
was involving state institutions
to gain political benefits, he noted. He said thousands of armed
forces personnel in the insurgency-hit tribal areas and Balochistan sacrificed their lives
for the defence of Pakistan and
the use of derogatory language
against the national institutions on social media was hurtful and unacceptable. The PM
said Imran Khan levelled an allegation of US $10 billion corruption against him, however,
the case could not proceed in
court as lawyers of PTI did not
appear before the judges for
years. “Imran Khan kept Tayyiba Gul in his illegal custody in
the Prime Minister House and
blackmailed the then chairman
National Accountability Bureau Justice (Retd) Javed Iqbal
to use him against the opposition,” the PM said. Imran also
made allegations against him
(Shehbaz) of US $17 million
corruption in the Multan Metro project and defamed China,
besides accusing him of corruption of Rs 27 billion,” he reminded. He said “Imran and his
associate Shehzad Akbar also
accused him of embezzlement
in the fund of the Department
for International Development
(DFID) of the United Kingdom
and got published a false story in Daily Mail.” However, later
all these allegations were proven wrong in courts which granted him and Hamza Shehbaz bail
and the National Crime Agency
of UK gave him (Shehbaz) clean
chit, he pointed out. PM Shehbaz said Imran Khan gave personal directions for the filing
of a false case of heroin possession against Rana Sana Ullah.
He said the govt of Imran Khan
was removed by the opposition
through the constitutional measure of a confidence motion.
Shehbaz held “Imran responsible for destroying the economy
of Pakistan and its foreign relations” in his four years of government. The image of Pakistan
was badly affected “during the
sit-in of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 2014 when the visit of Chinese President was cancelled”,
he added. Talking about his recent visit to China, he said the
stalemate of four years in relations of the two countries
was broken and progress was
made on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. He said he visited Saudi
Arabia and China to improve
relations with these countries
and the results were encouraging and positive.