Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday said the government was holding legal consultations on whether to file a separate case against PTI Chairman Imran Khan for his “provocative speech” a day ago or nominate him in a previous case.
In a press conference in Islamabad, the minister called out Imran for allegedly threatening institutions and preventing officers from performing their lawful duties.
“This is all happening in continuation — from a campaign after Lasbela incident when six army officers were martyred followed by Gill’s attempt to incite army ranks to go against their top command and then Imran threatening a woman judge and police officials for performing their duties as per the law,” the minister explained.
Imran claimed in a rally that the Islamabad police was taking orders for action against his party leaders from “someone”.
“When I asked the police to tell me what did you do to Shahbaz Gill, they said ‘we did nothing, we got a boot from behind to follow orders’,” he told the rally participants on Saturday while announcing plans to move the Supreme Court against the alleged torture of Gill.
Imran also warned the judiciary against its “biased” attitude towards his party, saying that it should brace itself for the consequences.
The former premier had also taken exception to Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry, who had approved Gill’s two-day physical remand at the request of the capital police, and said she should “prepare herself as action would be taken against her”.
In his presser today, Sanaullah said his ministry had prepared a report and it was conferring with the Islamabad advocate general and the law ministry, adding it would take a couple of days to reach a final decision.
He once again cast aspersions on the PTI’s claims of Gill being tortured during detention, questioning why Gill had thus far not filed an application or named an official who allegedly subjected him to torture.
“This is all drama just to divert attention from his anti-state remarks made on ARY News and the campaign over Lasbela incident,” the minister claimed.
The minister claimed that his ministry had proof in the form of a telephonic conversation allegedly revealing Gill’s understanding with ARY News workers about uninterrupted 14-minute airtime to be given to him for speaking against the army.
“How could he provoke army officers to disobey the orders of their top command?” he asked.
Sanallah said Gill termed a tier of certain officers as patriotic and labelled the “top command as unpatriotic”.
He narrated that many politicians would have spoken about the establishment’s alleged interference in politics by naming them, saying many retired officers of the establishment had also written books and admitted the past mistakes.
But, Gill took a name of all ranks terming them patriots and instigating them against the top command, he lamented.
The minister termed Gill remarks as “serious and unforgivable”.
The interior minister ruled out the PTI claims that their party leader was assaulted as well as sexually abused during custody, saying Gill remained in police custody from Aug 9-11 and subsequently he was sent on judicial remand for six days from Aug 12 to Aug 17.
“Not a single complaint was filed by him about torture and his condition deteriorated only after his remand was extended on Aug 17,” the minister said.
He said Imran was struggling to defend the statement made by Gill, hence “he made up a story of Gill’s torture to divert focus from his anti-Pakistan statements”.
The minister insisted that Gill was being served all meals on time amid proper care.
He accused the PTI of concocting stories as part of “damage control”, adding the government would expose the alleged plot.
Sanaullah also warned Imran of stronger action than what was done during the May 25 ‘Azadi March’ to PTI activists if his party went ahead with its plans.
However, he did not elaborate on whether the Imran-led party would be outrightly denied permission for the protest or there would be a conditional permit.
“If he [Imran] again takes such a step, the decision will be taken at the moment,” the minister added.
