Welcomes naming of new SC bench
KARACHI: Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Imran Khan has welcomed the constitution of a new bench by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to resume the hearing in the case of Panama Papers, saying that he would accept the decision by the new bench.
Speaking at a press conference here at the Insaf House on Saturday, the PTI chief appealed to the Supreme Court that it should resume hearing the Panama Papers’ case on day-to-day basis.
Imran Khan said that he had complete trust in the apex judiciary, saying that it was the only institution in the country trusted upon by the entire nation.
He expressed the hope that the Panama Papers’ case would not be lost in the new year 2017 as this case would be settled one way or the other in the first month of January. He said that the former chief justice of Pakistan had disappointed him as he (the chief justice) should have decided the Panama Papers case.
He said the year 2014 had been lost due to the movement against rigging in election while the year 2016 had been spent pursuing the Panama Papers’ case but hopefully 2017 would not be lost due to this case.
He said that his party would foil the designs of the government to unduly influence the forthcoming general elections in the country in the year 2018.
He alleged that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had made to sit his own people in the Election Commission. "We will again take to streets before the general elections in 2018 as we will not let the upcoming general polls happen in the manner the elections were held in 2013," he said.
He said the PTI had not been prepared for the general elections 2013 as at that time the Tehreek-e-Insaf was pre-occupied with its own intra-party polls but nobody should remain under any sort of misunderstanding on the forthcoming general polls.
The PTI chief said that he had started keeping under observation the prospective candidates of the party to contest in forthcoming general elections and he himself would give the final approval for anyone of the likely candidates to contest the election. He said the PTI could not enter into an alliance with any other political party headed by corrupt leaders. Imran Khan lamented that sanitation conditions had worsened in the city of Karachi due to unattended massive piles of garbage. He said that the situation of garbage had become serious in the last 30 years with no authority available to take responsibility.
He said the people of Karachi had been deprived of the facility of clean potable water as they had been fleeced by mafia operating the water tanker service in the city. He said that not a single gallon had been added to the water being supplied to Karachi since 2006. He suggested that Karachi should be once again made federal capital of the country.
He said the PTI had been able to secure 800,000 votes from Karachi in the 2013 general elections even when the party was not much organised. "But next time we will take part in the polls after complete preparation."
Imran Khan said that he had not been able to give due attention to Karachi and to the rest of Sindh owing to its pre-occupation with the protest movements related to rigging in polls and Panama Papers.
He alleged that the Sindh Police had been deprived of a very good inspector-general owing to political interference. He suggested that dwellers of Karachi should have resorted to protest for the sake of the IG police, who got transferred. He said that the people of Karachi should take to streets much like the manner citizens of Seoul, South Korea, had ventured out against corruption.
He said that Karachi Police was not professional as it had had been ruined by the rulers. He said that Rangers was no solution to the issue of law and order of Karachi; it was like treating cancer with disprin.
Imran Khan suggested that a military trial court should do hearing in the case of Baldia factory fire as it was highly lamentable that no action had been taken so far against the people involved in this tragedy. He said that stern punishment should be handed down to the elements who had killed innocent people only for the sake of money.
He said had the Baldia factory tragedy occurred somewhere else, the society there would have disintegrated. He said that the trial of Baldia factory fire case should be held in the military rt so as to save witnesses from being frightened.
He said that Rehman alias Bhola had been arrested in this case who had testified that he had set the factory in Baldia on fire on the instruction of Hammad Siddiqui on not getting extortion money from the factory.
Imran Khan appealed to the federal and provincial governments to apprehend the criminals involved in the Baldia factory fire incident.
