ISLAMABAD - Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan on Saturday blamed former prime minister Imran Khan for implicating him in a ‘bogus’ narcotics case and said that he had spoken to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa about the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF)’s controversial role in this regard.
The country’s security czar made these remarks two days after opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry had revealed in an interview that the drug trafficking case against Sanaullah was “rubbish”. He also said that the then government of PTI had not initiated this case against him.
In a twitter message, the interior minister accused that PTI chief Imran Khan was the “mastermind of the bogus case” of possessing 15 kilograms of heroin against him. He alleged that former adviser to the prime minister on accountability and interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar and former ANF director general were “complicit in this abominable act.” He went on to say that Akbar had first provoked the Islamabad police to place a bag of 15 Kg narcotics in his lodge, which the latter refused to do so.
In another tweet, the interior minister further claimed that all the proceedings were undertaken against him on the directives of the former premier Khan who wanted him behind the bars due to personal enmity. “I wrote and spoke to the COAS on ANF’s role in framing a spurious and mala fide case against me.”
A day earlier, former adviser Akbar, who is living abroad these days, in a twitter post, had also said that several cabinet members including Fawad Chaudhry and him had expressed their concerns over the case in a meeting. He said that Sanaullah should speak the truth as he knew who was actually behind registration of this case against him.
On July 1, 2019 during PTI regime, ANF had arrested Sanaullah during an operation from the Islamabad-Lahore motorway on charges of possessing around 15 Kg of heroin.
Rana Sanaullah has always insisted that he was implicated in a false case only to victimise him politically for speaking against the then government of Imran Khan.
A special court for the control of narcotic substances in Lahore has summoned the interior minister on July 23 for an indictment in the same case.
