Islamabad, Pakistan – Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party criticized the country’s interior minister for “seditious remarks” against his political rival.
In an interview on Sunday with a local news channel, Home Minister Rana Sanaullah, the government’s second most powerful official, spoke to the 72-year-old Khan, who was ousted from power last year over what many said was an undisguised threat. for the primary election is encouraged.
“He (Khan) has brought the country’s politics to a point where only one of us can exist,” said Sanaullah.
“When we feel our very existence is threatened, we will reach a point where we don’t have to worry about whether a move is democratic or not,” he added.
The minister called Khan an “incurable” “enemy” and said there would be no “political normalcy or stability” in the country as long as the leader of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party “is around.”
“He accused us of conspiring to kill him, and if he thought we were going to kill him, he clearly wanted to kill us,” he said.
PTI Khan criticized the minister’s comments.
“Killing? It is not an ordinary person speaking, but Pakistan’s interior minister. He would be forced to resign in any other country,” party leader Taimur Jhagra told Al Jazeera.
“Nothing from the government has disputed [the comments]. No apologies. It reveals their actual political values and also, sadly, a candid admission of how much they fear Imran Khan.
At a press conference on Sunday, senior PTI member Fawad Chaudhry asked if the minister was a “think.”
“Is he in politics, or does he run a gang?” That’s not the way politics is done. Politics is about listening to each other and moving forward. They say we have reached a point where Imran Khan lives, or we live, but we don’t feel that way about you,” he said.
Since his sacking in April last year, Khan has held several rallies calling for immediate national elections. He was shot in the leg at one of the rallies in November.
Khan has repeatedly accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government and mighty army of a conspiracy to jail or kill him ahead of parliamentary elections later this year.
The fierce feud between the ruling coalition and opposition leaders has recently led to violent clashes between Khan’s supporters and security forces in the capital Islamabad and his hometown of Lahore.
Khan, a legendary cricketer turned politician, claims to have been defeated on more than 80 charges, including cases relating to alleged corruption and even “terrorism.” Sanaullah denied the allegations, saying there were nearly 40 cases against the opposition leader.
Khan will appear again in Islamabad on Monday on suspicion of “terrorism.”
At a rally in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province – khan’s stronghold where parliamentary elections were controversially postponed by the government last week – the PTI chief attacked the government for failing to act when the country faced an economic crisis.
“I want to put a question to the Pakistani leadership. You don’t want to let Imran Khan win. All these adventures, including the attack on my house, delayed the election – the aim of all this is just to ensure that Imran Khan does not return to power,” he said.
“So, of course, I ask, don’t let me win. But do you have a program to save the country from this disaster? Do you have a road map?’
