Even if disqualified I wouldn’t have spared the Sharifs: Imran

Blames NAB for deliberately presenting a weak case to reopen the Hudaibya case

HYDERABAD: After surviving a disqualification at the hand of the Supreme Court, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf's (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said that even an adverse order would not have stopped him from the political struggle to oust the Sharif brothers.

"Today even if the supreme court had disqualified me, I want to tell the Sharif mafia and their corrupt ministers that I wouldn't have stopped pursuing you," Imran told a fervent crowd of supporters who had gathered at the ground of Fauji sugar mills in Tando Muhammad Khan where the PTI held its public meeting on Friday.

The statement seems to contradict his earlier reported stance that he would quit politics if the Supreme Court found him guilty of hiding assets.



Imran, who was also vociferously demanding the reopening of the Hudaibya Paper Mills case, reprimanded the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for deliberately presenting a weak case in the apex court.

The PTI chief blamed former NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry for saving the Sharif family. "NAB, you have disappointed the nation. It was your responsibility to make a strong case. [But] they knowingly prepared a weak case so that the Supreme Court couldn't catch them."

Imran argued that the case was not decided on merit because a trial of the alleged corruption of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others was not held. Rather, the weak technical ground of time lapse became the cause of its dismissal, he added.

Despite sounding alarm at the case's outcome, Imran rhetorically said he felt pleased that CM Punjab was not disqualified. "If you [Shehbaz] were disqualified then with whom would we have played the match [contested election] in Punjab. It's good that you weren't. I wouldn't have enjoyed playing against a weak team."



He also vowed that PTI will defeat PML-N in the elections and after that his party's government will put the Sharif brothers in jail.

The PTI supremo also asked NAB's incumbent Chairman justice (retd) Javed Iqbal that the bureau is sending a message to Pakistanis that they will be caught if they embezzled a less amount of money from the public coffers. But, he added, the big thieves and plunderers will get the state's support and protocol.

Imran contended that the disqualification case, as well as, eight other cases filed against him in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) was a vengeance for the Panama case.



Sindh politics

Imran, in his address, also denounced the Pakistan Peoples Party's leadership for plunging Sindh in a myriad of problems. He reiterated that Sindh and Balochistan lag behind Punjab and K-P on several counts of human development.

The PTI chief specifically referred to education, health, policing, employment and agriculture. He blamed former president Asif Ali Zardari for the problems confronted by the farmers, especially sugarcane growers.

Imran noted that the government has fixed Rs182 per 40 kilogram rate for sugarcane but the sugar mills were paying only up to Rs140 price. "Unless we don't come to power in Sindh the farmers will not get the right price for their crops because powerful people own the mills," he told his supporters.



"One thing you need to understand is that when a nation is behind in education then they are left behind in development." He pointed to a recent survey of non-profit Alif Ailaan according to which not a single district of Sindh or Balochistan are in the rankings.

He assured the people that the PTI's government will improve government schooling in Sindh so that even the ministers will send their children to these schools.

PTI Sindh's President Dr Arif Alvi said Sindh needed a leader like Imran to rid the province of corruption and other problems.

Former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi said in the next general elections even PPP MNA Syed Naveed Qamar will not be able to win his seat from Tando Muhammad Khan. He claimed that the political support is changing in favour of PTI in Sindh.