Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday said that new Chief of Army Staff (COAS) should not continue the policies of his predecessor.
In a meeting with Vloggers at his Zaman Park residence in Lahore, the former PM said that he never wanted to appoint Lt Gen (r) Faiz Hameed as army chief, adding that a propaganda campaign was launched against him.
“I never called General Bajwa [former army chief] my boss as I was the PM,” he said. Imran claimed that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was working under the influence of the establishment. “When we came to power, all kinds of mafias existed but we could not take action against them,” he admitted. The former premier alleged that the two families had weakened the institutions, adding that the return of Suleman Shehbaz, the son of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to Pakistan was part of “NRO-two”.
He said that senior journalist Arshad Sharif’s mother has named the same people for the killing of her son whom he had identified earlier.
Imran said that the FIR of the incident should be registered as per the version of slain journalist’s mother.
Calling overseas Pakistanis a big asset of the country, he said that if they invest in Pakistan, the country would not need to beg anyone. He said Punjab CM Pervaiz Elahi expressed confidence in him and added that the latter will dissolve the provincial assembly on his call. The PTI chief said that the only way to stop extremism is to spread information about religion among the masses. “The attack on me was planned two-and-a-half months ago,” he claimed.
Separately, Imran instructed party’s lawmakers and ticketholders to speed up preparations for the next general elections. He was talking to PTI lawmakers from Attock, Jhelum, Chakwal and Sialkot along with ticket holders of Gujranwala.
Meanwhile, PTI leader Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Thursday confirmed that Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has suggested extending the date for the dissolution of the provincial assemblies. Contrary to PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s announcement that the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be dissolved during this month, the Punjab chief minister on December 5 said that he did not see elections taking place in the next four months.
Fawad said that Khan is playing the role of a bridge between the people and the state. “Our agenda is only one. When will the elections be held?” Unfortunately, the institutions have not changed their role as apolitical, he added. The PTI leader stressed the need for restricting the establishment to its constitutional role.
