LAHORE    -  Pakistan Tehreek-e-In­saf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Monday called former finance minister Ishaq Dar the biggest cheater of Paki­stan and attributed his homecoming to an un­derhand deal.

“Over here, thieves are involved in deals. Ishaq Dar left Pakistan for London. Ishaq Dar could not justify his as­sets, which is why he absconded. He is re­turning under a deal,” Imran said

Addressing a political event at the Government College University (GCU), Lahore campus here, the PTI chief said that the country could not move forward because of the thieves who were offered deals and given NROs here in Pakistan. 

He said this was the reason that thefts would not end, and the money launder­ing would go unabat­ed. Khan said Ishaq Dar had left the country on the PM’s plane because he had no answers to the questions of the National Accountabil­ity Bureau about his assets. He said Dar fled the country under the pretext of get­ting treatment, but many would not know what treatment he was seeking abroad. 

He urged the people not to watch this, what he called, a theatre like goats and sheep and rise against oppression and in­justice. Borrowing a quote from Aristotle, Khan said the great philosopher had said 2500 years ago that if there was oppres­sion and injustice in a society, all the sec­tions of society would rise against it ex­cept the cowards and the selfish.

He also cited the oft repeated example of the people of Kufa who did not side with Imam Hussain (RA) out of the fear of Ya­zeed despite knowing that he [Imam Hus­sain (RA)] was on the right path. Giving these two examples, Khan concluded that this was how they become a slave. 

“When a person bows down before a fear, he commits shirk”, he said and added that this was why the God Almighty had made Jehad obligatory to fight against op­pression. Talking about the recent audio leaks, Imran said that the story had un­folded with Wikileaks followed by Dawn leaks, and now comes the audio leaks. He said it was quite evident from the audio leaks that the current chief election com­missioner was the house servant of the Sharif family. 

He said that he had struggled hard to introduce electronic voting machines (EVMs) for free and fair elections, but the chief election commissioner opposed the move at the behest of Nawaz Shar­if and Asif Zardari. “If he has even a frac­tion of shame, he should resign now; and if he does not, we will force him to re­sign.” He predicted that more audio re­cordings of the present rulers will come to surface soon. The former prime minis­ter also asked the students of the Govern­ment College University, “to whom Donald Lu was addressing in the cipher to remove my Govt?” Students replied “neutral neu­tral”. The PTI chairman appreciated them by saying “you passed the first test.”

Addressing the gathering at Govern­ment College University (GCU) in Lahore, Imran also said that the audio leaks had made it apparent that CEC Raja was a “ser­vant of the Sharif household”.

In the audio leaks, “Nawaz is telling him [CEC] who should be disqualified and when to hold elections,” the former pre­mier said. After the audio leaks, the CEC should resign if he has even an ounce of shame, he said. “But he doesn’t [have any shame], so we will have to make him re­sign.” Turning his guns on Maryam, the PTI chief referred to one of the audio re­cordings purportedly featuring a conver­sation between PM Shehbaz and an un­identified official about the possibility of facilitating the import of Indian machin­ery for a power project that was linked to the PML-N vice president’s son-in-law.

Lambasting the PML-N, particularly PM Shehbaz, Imran said that his government had ended trade ties with India after New Delhi had revoked occupied Kashmir’s special autonomy in August 2019.

“There are still no ties, but Maryam’s son-in-law [intends] to procure machin­ery from India,” Imran continued, add­ing: “And what is prime minister cher­ry blossom’s response? He suggests that they bring the machinery via another country instead of telling them not to im­port it at all.”