Panamagate hearing: Time is running out for Nawaz: Imran

PTI chief says no one will protest premier’s ouster from office

ISLAMABAD: [fbvideo link="https://www.facebook.com/etribune/videos/1930284960321854/"][/fbvideo]

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday said if the ‘Sharif mafia’ opposed the ‘possible adverse’ decision of the Supreme Court in the Panamagate case, then it will be ‘contempt of the Constitution’.

“The case (Panamagate) is going against them in the Supreme Court. If they stand against the SC’s decision, they will be in contempt of the Constitution of Pakistan, and the country’s laws are clear for violating the Constitution,” Khan said while talking to the media at the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa House.

Khan was the chief guest at a contract-signing ceremony for the production of 150MW electricity in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with the help of the private sector.

Answering a question, he said no one from public – except the Punjab police and Patwaris – would come on the roads to protest the premier’s ouster.

“If he (Nawaz Sharif) is under any misconception that people will come out [on the streets] in his support, then he should remember what happened when he was deposed by [Gen Pervez] Musharraf in 1999 – although he had a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly,” Khan said, adding: “Even people distributed sweets. Similar was the case when he arrived back in Islamabad from Jeddah by violating his agreement with Musharraf about the self-imposed exile.”

 



“No one had dared to come out. Even PML-N leaders were videoed voluntarily offering their arrests,” Khan added.

Referring to the PM’s statement in Chitral that he (Imran) had been begging him to resign, Khan said: “Now, I am not talking about the resignation. Indeed, they will go to Adiala Jail for their crimes.”

The PTI chairman said with every passing day it had been getting difficult for the prime minister to face the public, adding that was the reason he opted for a recorded speech in Chitral, fearing ‘go Nawaz, go’ slogans.

Khan said Sharif himself presented his family for accountability, and when the accountability process began they started crying foul and produced nothing to support their claims.

“Even the documents submitted [in the Supreme Court] are forged [and] an attempt to deceive it,” he observed.

“There is a difference between democracy and dictatorship. Transparency and accountability are the very basics of democracy,” he said, adding, “Time is running out for Nawaz Sharif.”



“You are short of time. Nawaz Sharif, nobody is afraid of your threats; nation no longer cares; you have 30 years worth of corruption on you; your businesses were a front for corruption and money laundering; you were committing double crime by taking stolen money abroad,” Khan alleged.

He said just by making a naive face, Sharif could not befool the public anymore. “This is an era of social and electronic media. The discrepancies in their documentation (presented on Thursday before the apex court) were decimated by the public on social media even before the case was heard in the court today.”

Khan said the entire N-league was a contender for Adiyala Jail.

Earlier, K-P Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak said some 600MW electricity projects were underway in the province and added the provincial government itself was executing those projects with the help of the private sector.

“I am optimistic that till the end of 2018, the K-P province will sign agreements for the production of 4,000MW electricity,” Khattak claimed.

He said the electricity projects would be run-of-the-river, with a long life and environment-friendly techniques.