PTI petitions SC against PM today

Party will also seek support of other political groups for Sept 3 rally, says Imran

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has said his party will petition the Supreme Court against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday (today).

“After much deliberation, we have decided to file a petition against Nawaz Sharif in the Supreme Court tomorrow (Monday),” Imran told journalists in Lahore on Monday.



The party would seek disqualification of Nawaz as well as an inquiry into the Panamagate scandal, the head of PTI’s media department, Iftikhar Durrani, told The Express Tribune. He admitted the party had been divided over approaching the apex court.

The petition has been drafted by two leading lawyers, Naeem Bokhari, and a former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association [SCBA], Hamid Khan, he said.

Durrani said: “We will submit documents regarding properties purchased

[in London] during 1993 and 1996.” These properties were later attached in Al-Toufiq case in 1999, but Nawaz claimed he had purchased these properties in 2005. “How these properties could be attached by the court [in the UK] back in 1998 if they were purchased in 2005?” he questioned.

He said the petition would highlight the concealment of assets by Nawaz, mentioning the prime minister’s statement of assets submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan [ECP] during 2011-12.



Meanwhile, Imran Khan said his party would send delegations to different political parties to formally invite them to join their September 3 rally in Lahore. “We will appear on our container but will also invite all opposition parties to bring their containers too,” he added.

Dismissing reservations that the party would fail to ensure a huge turnout at the rally, he said the PTI would come out with ‘full force’. He said the prime minister was trying to create doubts about his party’s street agitation. “Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N are products of dictatorship,” he said, adding that democratic parties always reached out to the masses.

Asked about Altaf Hussain’s vitriolic, Imran said no Pakistani could defend his speech. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech, in which he spoke against Pakistan, was not as venomous as the one given by Altaf.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2016.