ISLAMABAD - Chairman Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan has urged the Supreme Court to direct Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to step down prior to his appearance before the Joint Investigation Team (JIT).
Khan also urged the Supreme Court to publish JIT report explaining hurdles in its way so that people could know about the tactics the rulers are applying against it.
Speaking at a news conference at his residence in Bani Gala, Imran Khan said the PM should resign before Thursday, the day he is appearing before the JIT investigating the alleged off-shore wealth of Sharif family, as he was facing a criminal investigation on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
He added that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had not faced accountability in the past because it either bribed judges or attacked them in case it failed to bribe them.
He reiterated that PML-N first discredited the team and then would boycott it. They were distributing sweets and felicitated formation of JIT by SC because they were so used to buy people through bribery but now their hue and cry over being victimised shows that they have failed to buy or intimidate JIT, he added. He stated that impeding the course of the team’s probe was also a crime.
PML-N is a mafia based on bribing people’s loyalties and threatening them in order to serve their interests, he added. They are God father, he added.
Khan went on to say that the refusal of the Qatari prince to record his statement in Pakistan was a signal that the case had ended for the Sharifs.
Furthermore, he said what would be Pakistan’s global standing if its premier was facing such an investigation while taking trips to different parts of the world. PML-N has lost moral grounds and Nawaz Sharif’s clinging to the premiership is absurd despite the ongoing investigation.
Responding to a question, Khan said his supporters would remain peaceful but if the PML-N took to streets during the PM’s appearance before the JIT, then his party would follow the suit. Nawaz Sharif’s appearance before JIT, he added, is not an altruistic act but he is facing a serious offence of money laundering. He added that SC was the one which asked Nawaz Sharif to appear before JIT. “This money laundering has put the country in debt and deprived the health and education sectors of funding,” he said. No one can save house of Sharifs from being brought under the law.