Islamabad: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that Imran Khan will be tried in a military court as the former prime minister was the “architect” of the May 9 incidents in which military and state installations were attacked by his party workers following his arrest in a corruption case.
Appearing on a Dawn News show, Sanaullah also accused the 70-year-old chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of personally carrying out the planning of the attacks on military installations before his arrest on the day.
There was evidence to prove the claim as well, the minister added. When asked if Khan would be tried in the military court, he said: “Absolutely, why shouldn’t it? The program that he made to target the military installations and then had it executed, in my understanding it absolutely is a case of a military court.”
The minister accused Khan of personally orchestrating the May 9 riots. “His supporters chanted a slogan that ‘Imran Khan is our red line’, and the planning and preparation were done on Imran Khan’s initiative and instigation. He carried it all out. He is the architect of all this discord,” he said.
“(The evidence) is documented, it is in tweets and his messages,” he added. When asked how Khan was able to communicate with his party leaders even from jail, the minister replied: “All this (planning) was decided before he went (to jail) that ‘who will do what and where. And when he is arrested, what would be the strategy and duties’. All of this was decided.”
The minister’s remarks come a day after Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said that there was no decision yet on Khan’s trial under the stringent Army Act. He, however, said that he could not “rule out” such a possibility.
Khan has denied his involvement in the violence, saying he was in jail when the mayhem took place. He has stated that the establishment plans to keep him in jail for 10 years in a sedition case. On May 9, violent protests erupted after the arrest of Khan by paramilitary Rangers in Islamabad.
Pakistan govt turns down Imran Khan’s talks offer
Pakistan’s ruling parties have rejected beleaguered former prime minister Imran Khan’s offer for talks, stating that talks were held with politicians not “terrorists”, local media reported.
The development came as the PTI chief constituted a seven-member negotiating team to hold talks with the government – for developing consensus on a date for general elections – amid a massive crackdown, The Express Tribune reported.
Responding to the offer, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif took to Twitter to state that talks are held only with politicians. “There will be no talks with a group of terrorists and saboteurs who burn memorials of martyrs and set the country on fire,” he said.
In a statement, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said: “Those who attack the state are punished; they are not negotiated with,” The Express Tribune reported.
