Info minister says FIA has substantial evidence against culprits who are currently undergoing further scrutiny n May 9 incidents benefit Pakistan’s 'enemy', nation triumphed with foiling of conspiracy n Accuses former PM of framing fake cases against PML-N leadership.

ISLAMABAD  -  Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Au­rangzeb on Monday accused Chairman PTI Imran Khan for spearheading the ‘ongo­ing campaign’ against nation­al institutions.

She alleged that former prime minister Imran Khan made sys­tematic efforts to discredit and destabilize the state institu­tions through the misuse of so­cial media platforms. “Those who run campaigns against the national institutions have been exposed and will not be spared.” On the oth­er hand, a spokesperson of PTI in its response said that Sharifs’ courtiers have been tasked to attack the PTI chairman to secure their jobs. Addressing a press conference here, the infor­mation minister while referring to the PTI chief said that the “foreign agent”, who mastermind­ed the May 9 violence made a tweet the other day asking who benefited from the tragedy.

“Only the enemies of the country benefited from the acts of vandalism and arson, but the people of Pakistan are the ultimate winners as the conspiracy against the country’s integrity has been foiled,” she said.

Marriyum said the PTI chairman claimed that his party was the biggest one in the coun­try, but it existed only on twitter as it had no credible spokesperson. “In fact nobody wants to come forward to defend the persistent lies churned out by its chairman.”

She pointed out that a group of individu­als, operating from abroad, was actively or­chestrating a malicious campaign against the state institutions through social media plat­forms. The “group of troublemakers” was not even hesitant to launch unwarranted attacks against several prominent figures and institu­tions, she added. They were the same people who were involved in the targeted campaigns against the martyrs of the Lasbella helicopter crash and the incumbent army chief, the min­ister remarked.

The minister said that the Federal Investi­gation Agency (FIA) had substantial evidence against those who were involved in social me­dia campaigns against national institutions, which was currently undergoing further scru­tiny and investigation. She said that some el­ements were engaged in “anti-state activities and treason” while sitting abroad, and some of the proxies of the chairman PTI took refuge at different places in the country spreading fake information through twitter.

She also drew a comparison between the PTI and PML-N leaderships, saying the latter faced severe victimization during the PTI regime without making any hue and cry.

She accused ex-premier Khan of fabricating false cases against his political opponents, in­cluding Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shehbaz, Khawaja Asif, Rana Sanaullah, Faryal Talpur, and others, who endured the hardships of being confined to jail cells. Responding to a question, the minister said no political parties had committed a crime of desecrating martyrs’ memorials except the “foreign agent”.

Reacting to the press conference, a spokes­person of PTI said that the rising popularity of Khan petrified the crooked ruling group due to which it lost its senses, which was evident from their courtiers’ press conferences one after an­other against the most popular leader of the country. He made it clear that the Sharif fami­ly and its followers were punished by the court in corruption cases and not for the gratifica­tion of anyone’s personal ego. He alleged that the “family slaves” of the Sharifs come forward every day with new lies and resorted to verbal abuse to secure their jobs. Those who called the country’s most popular as a foreign agent, should apprise the nation at least as to when the fugitive leader would back home from Lon­don, said the spokesperson while referring to Nawaz Sharif.