Imran asks if it is FIA’s job to shut people’s mouths

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan asked on Tuesday if the duty of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was to shut mouths of people.

 Regarding the measures being taken against the social media for hitting the military and the government, Imran said that the social media could not be curbed and asked if due to any of his decisions his party men criticised him, should he ask them to shut up.

 He said a large number of people from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) wanted to join his party, as PPP’s ex-lawmaker Noor Alam Khan became a part of the PTI.

 Talking to media persons here after Noor Alam met him, Imran noted that people from the PML-N were willing to join the PTI but were scared of the treatment meted out to Chaudhry Ejaz.

He alleged the innocent looking Sharifs were fascists, who had made so many cases against him in the Supreme Court and the Election Commission during the last seven months.

The PTI chairman said people knew him for the last 40 years. More protocol was accorded to then president Ayub Khan during his visit to Saudi Arabia than to US President Donald Trump, he recalled and added even Ayub was accorded due protocol upon his visit to the United States.

 However, Imran lamented that the prime minister of 200 million people, Nawaz Sharif was treated like a beggar in Riyadh, who had spoken to media while reading out from chits during his meeting with then president Barack Obama. 

 He traced the cause of this ‘disgrace’ to the nation in the criminal investigation being carried out against the prime minister, who was facing the JIT but despite that he went to Saudi Arabia, saying he would not have gone there. Imran asked why people should not criticise the prime minister for the way he was treated in Riyadh. “Should they praise him instead,” he wondered. 

 Referring to the objections raised by Husain Nawaz on the two members of JIT, Imran wondered if the PTI would have raised objections while the entire state institutions were under the prime minister and Ishaq Dar, who faced Hudaibiya Paper Mills probe, had under him SBP, SECP and other entities. He welcomed Noor Alam’s joining of PTI from KP and said it was a very good news, as already another one from the PPP, Murtaza Satti had joined his party.

Noor Alam said that Imran was the only one who was waging a struggle to save the state institutions and above all integrity of Pakistan.  He spoke highly of the transfer of powers to the grassroot level under the local bodies system in the KP.