Information Minister Attaullah Tarar alleges Imran Khan’s party involved in anti-state activities.  Says ruling alliance will send reference against Imran, Alvi, Suri under Article 6 of the Constitution to Supreme Court after cabinet’s approval.  Claims Article 17 of the Constitution empowers federal govt to ban a political party.

ISLAMABAD   -  Federal Minister for Information Attaullah Tarar Monday announced four major decisions of the federal government of banning Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, filing of review petition in reserved seats case, references against PTI founder and others for subverting the Constitution and strict legal action against handful of overseas Pakistanis for anti-state activities.

The minister announced the development at a press conference which mainly highlighted the activities of the PTI and its leadership to weaken sovereignty of the country and harm its integrity at the international level. The press conference also featured audio and video clips that allegedly showed involvement of the PTI and its leadership in the ‘anti-state’ activities.

The minister said, “This is a fact and on the record that the PTI has been involved in the antistate activities and to this end, the government and its allies have decided to initi­ate legal proceedings to ban the PTI under Article 17 of the Con­stitution which empowers the federal government to ban any such a party.” 

Tarar justified the action of the government against the PTI which, he alleged, obtained foreign funding to attack the state institutions on May 9, de­fault the economy by sabotag­ing Pakistan’s negotiation with the International Monetary Fund, resettle the terrorists in the country and hire lobbying firms to get a resolution passed against the country in a foreign country’s Parliament.

All these activities of the PTI were established, he said, add­ing “in view of the foreign fund­ing case, May 9 riots, and the cipher episode as well as the resolution passed in the US, we believe that there is very cred­ible evidence present to have the PTI banned.” 

He said a series of events that set off in a form of chain, gave a clear understanding of the an­ti-state agenda of the PTI which first brought terrorist back into the country and then attacked on the state institution to un­dermine its sovereignty.

On the one hand, they were giving shelter and safe heavens to the terrorists and on the oth­er hand they resorted to attack the army installations including the Corps Commander House in Lahore, he said asking the PTI’s founder who gave him the au­thority to bring back disgrun­tled elements in settled areas.

The minister said the party used the prohibited funding to hire lobbying firms that worked to damage the integrity of the country. The minister said the Election Commission of Paki­stan (ECP) had given a verdict that the PTI had received pro­hibited funding, recalling how delaying tactics were used to prevent further proceeding in the case during the tenure of the PTI government.

He said it was on the record that how the PTI miserably failed to justify and defend the funding received from Israeli and Indian origin overseas per­sons. He questioned the partic­ipation of the PTI leadership in a meeting and dinner which re­portedly had a presence of an Israeli billionaire in London es­pecially at a time when geno­cide of innocent Palestinians was being committed. 

Recalling how the PTI mis­led the nation by orchestrating a cipher drama, he said it was on record that the PTI founder suggested his confidants to play with an official document. Even Ambassador Asad Majeed, the author of cipher, said there was no threat to the country in the cipher, but the PTI leadership was hell bent upon damaging the diplomatic relations of Pa­kistan with the other country.

He said PTI’s former finance ministers Shaukat Tareen re­portedly told the then provin­cial finance ministers to write a letter to sabotage a deal of the government with the IMF. Tarar said the entire family of the PTI founder was involved in May 9 attack as three of his sisters were found outside the Corps Commander House in Lahore and his nephew was seen defil­ing the official uniforms.

The workers were ordered to reach designated points for creating chaos and anarchy, he said, adding the video and au­dio evidences were available with the government. “We have irrefutable evidence and strong grounds to ban the party,” he noted. Speaking about the time when the then-government de­cided to dissolve the assem­blies during the no-confidence motion against Imran Khan, the minister said the ruling alli­ance had also decided to move a reference against the then-prime minister, then-president Arif Alvi and then former Na­tional Assembly deputy speak­er Qasim Suri.

He said that this reference, under Article 6 of the Consti­tution, would be sent to the Supreme Court after the cabi­net’s approval. As regards an­ti-state campaign and conspir­acies from abroad, he said a handful of overseas Pakistanis who collected funds to weaken Pakistan, did not represent the majority who had been con­tributing to the national econ­omy by sending massive re­mittances. A resolution would be passed in the House to take action against such elements, he added. For the last some days, he said an orchestrat­ed campaign was underway to create a volatile situation in the country. The whole nation witnessed how an impression was being created that “what­ever worst one does, it could be forgone,” he said referring to the relief given to what he described as “perpetrators of the May 9, orchestrators of ci­pher conspiracy against coun­try and patrons of those who hired services of the lobbyist firms abroad to get approve Parliamentary resolution.

“Whatever happens wheth­er they hold (intra) party elec­tions or not, or there is an Iddat case or any other thing such as a case of 190 million pounds…the impression is that they are untouchables,” he added.

“I want to respond to them in clear and unambiguous words that that is no more,” he said while ruling out any progress of the country amid the presence of the PTI.

As regards a decision on re­served seats, he said it had cre­ated an impression that “the given relief is uncalled for”. “The PTI was not a party to the case, nor their members claimed to be members of the PTI; all of them joined Sunni Itehad Coun­cil and submitted their affida­vits,” he said while asserting that the Sunni Itehad Council did not allow non-Muslim to be the members of the party which technically deprived the party of its minority seats.

“Keeping in view the legal loophole in this judgement, the government and its allies have decided to file a review peti­tion,” he added. Stressing that the review petition is justified, the minister said that the wom­en and minorities, who suffered injustices, believed that this re­view petition should be filed.

“We will ask whether the MNAs who got relief were pres­ent in the court, were their af­fidavit present and did they ask for that relief and should the Election Act 2017 section be nullified,” said Tarar. Mean­while, comparing political grooming of the Pakistan Mus­lim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers, he said the founder of the PTI was a “worst fascist” in the po­litical history who set tradition of sending mothers and sisters of his political opponents be­hind bars and suspending the supply food and medicines to his opponents in the jail under his political witch-hunt.

On the other hand, he said the PML leadership had trained its workers to share pain, grief and happiness of their oppo­nents, but unfortunately, it seemed that our patience and far-sightedness was being tak­en as weakness. He also lashed out the PTI for running a mali­cious campaign targeting the NAB Chairman. 

To a query, he said talks with leader of Tehreek-e-Labaik Saad Rizvi was underway and being briefed about the steps taken by Prime Minister She­hbaz Sharif to highlight plight of Palestinians at internation­al level. To another query, he said, “we respect the judiciary wholeheartedly and we have legal right to appeal against the decision and the govern­ment is going to file the review petition.”