Imran Khan claims excessive ISI officer was involved in senior journalist’s murder

By Press Trust of India: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has alleged that top ISI officer Major-General Faisal Naseer, who tried to kill him twice, was moreover involved inside the brutal murder of senior journalist Arshad Sharif.

Khan’s remarks received right here whereas he was addressing a rally in Lahore from his bullet-bomb-proof vehicle. The rally was telecast keep in several cities by the use of a video hyperlink.

“Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)’s Major-General Faisal Naseer tried to kill me twice. He is also involved in the killing of (TV anchor) Arshad Sharif. He also stripped my party Senator Azam Swati naked and inflicted severe torture on him,” Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Khan acknowledged.

ALSO READ | Bhutto deems India go to as ‘success’ after Jaishankar calls him ‘promoter of terror enterprise’

Arshad Sharif, who was essential of the Army, was killed in Kenya last October as he fled the nation citing threats to his life from the protection corporations.

The taking photos ineffective of an investigative journalist by police in Kenya triggered outrage in Pakistan.

Kenya’s police, in an preliminary report, had acknowledged the 49-year-old was shot ineffective in a transferring vehicle in a case of mistaken id.

Khan, 71, had earlier accused Gen Naseer along with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah of an assassination strive on his life in November last 12 months in Punjab province’s Wazirabad whereby he obtained three bullets in his leg.

“This man (Gen Naseer) has been involved in atrocities against my party persons for the last 20 months but no one at his institution is bothered about it. No person who loves Pakistan can do what this man is doing,” the cricketer-turned-politician acknowledged, in a roundabout way asking incumbent Army Chief General Asim Munir why he would not take movement in direction of this ISI personnel.

ALSO READ | What Bilawal Bhutto acknowledged on terrorism, Article 370, Dawood Ibrahim | Exclusive

The PTI chief requested the nation to come back again out on roads in direction of the ‘mafia rulers and their handlers (parts inside the navy establishment)’.

“Despite these murder plans, I am protesting on the roads for the sake of this country. It is your duty to join me because it is not politics but jehad — fight for real freedom is never politics,” he said.

Khan said his party will organise rallies from next week till May 14 to demand elections in Punjab.

He said if the Sup­reme Court is defied, the Consti­tution will collapse. “It means the highest of the rule of laws and the beginning of the laws of the jungle. We will not let it happen,” Khan burdened.

The ousted premier moreover questioned what Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was doing inside the UK.

WATCH | Will Pakistan go for battle with Afghanistan?

Shehbaz Sharif travelled to the UK to attend the Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

“Shehbaz is there because of his wealth is stashed away in Britain. His children are abroad. This nation is barely a ruling pastime for the family,” Khan said.

He also lambasted Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for visiting India to attend a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Khan asked what benefit was gained from the trip to India.

“Pakistan is humiliated on the planet,” he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar mounted an offensive against Bhutto-Zardari in his address at the SCO meeting, contending Pakistan’s foreign minister’s statement that terrorism shouldn’t be “weaponised for diplomatic point-scoring”, in remarks seen as directed at India.

Hours later at a press conference, Jaishankar said Bhutto-Zardari’s statement on the weaponisation of terrorism unconsciously revealed a mindset.

Jaishankar accused him of being a “promoter, justifier and a spokesperson of a terror enterprise”.

“As a worldwide minister of an SCO member state, Bhutto-Zardari was dealt with accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and a spokesperson of a terrorism enterprise, which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions had been known as out and they also had been countered along with on the SCO meeting itself,” Jaishankar said.

Khan criticised Jaishankar for his remarks and said: “Pakistan’s worldwide minister should have calculated the cost-benefit ratio sooner than embarking on this diplomatically harmful journey.”

Bhutto-Zardari has however termed his visit a “success” as he advocated his nation’s case on the soil of India.

ALSO READ | Imran Khan tells courtroom docket ‘third assassination strive’ in direction of him afoot