Imran thanks God for ‘ridding the country’ of ‘corrupt’ Sharif family

PTI chief says ‘plunderers of nation’s wealth’ will also bite the dust in NA-120 by-poll

LONDON: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that he is thankful to God for ridding Pakistan of the ‘corrupt Sharif family’ who will now land in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.

Imran was speaking to journalists at London’s Heathrow airport on Saturday, a day after the country’s top graft buster, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), filed three corruption references against deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his three children.



“These plunderers of the nation’s wealth will also bite the dust in the NA-120 by-poll where Maryam Nawaz is campaigning for her mother Kulsoom Nawaz,” the PTI chairman said. Kulsoom, who is currently being treated for cancer at a London hospital, is running against PTI’s Dr Yasmin Rashid for the seat that had fallen vacant following the disqualification of Sharif in the Panamagate case.

“The PML-N is using the state machinery. Police and administration are aiding them in their hooliganism,” he alleged. “But voters will defeat these dacoits. And their defeat will be a victory of the judiciary,” he said while referring to the Supreme Court judgment which sent Sharif packing.

Imran also accused a section of the media for ‘twisting and tweaking’ his statement about the PTI-led government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. “The provincial government has performed much better than those who had been voted to power several times,” he said while alluding to his political arch-nemesis.



Earlier, a large number of PTI supporters had welcomed Imran at the Heathrow airport. When he started talking to journalists he asked to remove the microphone of Geo TV, which is ‘spreading lies’. “Mir Shakilur Rehman [Geo/Jang owner] will save any criminal in return for money,” he alleged.

Imran will stay in London for one week where he will attend a wedding and meet party leaders.

According to NNI, the PTI chairman expressed displeasure at the low turnout and bad arrangements at the party’s recent election rally in Lahore’s Qartaba Chowk.  He was particularly unhappy with PTI’s central Punjab president Abdul Aleem Khan and Shoaib Siddiqui for the delay in arrangements for the rally.