Imran distances himself from Masjid-e-Nabwi incident

Deposed prime minister describes incident as public’s ‘spontaneous reaction’

ISLAMABAD:

PTI Chairman and former premier Imran Khan has maintained that he had nothing to do with the pilgrims who heckled and shouted slogans against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his delegation during their visit to Masjid-e-Nabwi on Thursday.

During an interview to a private TV channel that would be fully broadcasted on the first day of Eid, the deposed PM claimed that he could not even imagine of asking anyone to shout slogans at the holy site.

A clip of the interview shows the PTI chief as saying that he had taken up the issue of Islamophobia at every forum.

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“The reason for doing that is my belief that your faith is not complete until you do not love the Holy Prophet (PBUH),” he added.

“I cannot think of asking anyone to shout slogans at that holy site. Nobody who loves the Holy Prophet (PBUH) can even think about it."

PM Shehbaz is in Saudi Arabia on a three-day visit, along with a delegation including Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Nawabzada Shahzain Bugti, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Miftah Ismail, Khawaja Asif, Chaudhry Salik Hussain, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Mohsin Dawar and Maulana Tahir Ashrafi.

After their arrival in Madina on Thursday, they headed to Masjid-e-Nabwi to offer prayers.

However, angry protesters, apparently supporters of the PTI, gathered around PM Shehbaz and his delegation and shouted slogans of “thieves” and “beggars” – one of the pictures captured on the scene showing the premier sitting in a vehicle visibly perturbed by the incident.

In a series of videos doing the rounds on social media, the miscreants can be seen specifically targeting Narcotics Minister Nawab Shahzain Bugti, calling him a “shameless” and a “lota”. In fact, one of them even grabbed him by his hair.

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One of the miscreants could be heard shouting obscenities at Federal Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.

In one of the clips of the interview, the former premier could heard claiming that when the incident took place, "every" PTI activist in Pakistan and abroad were observing shab-e-dua. "This is the public’s spontaneous reaction," he claimed. "What happened was because of their [new government's] own actions — the way they ousted the [PTI] government by becoming a part of a foreign conspiracy. The way an NRO 2 [National Reconciliation Ordinance] was given through that conspiracy [and] the most corrupt people were imposed on the country.”

The former premier said overseas Pakistanis had come out openly like never before in “unprecedented numbers” in Europe, the US and UK in protest over the removal of the PTI-led government.

"We are not asking them to come out. The people are coming out because of their pain at what had happened and they are angry."

The PTI chairman claimed that the new government's members would not be able to show their face at any public place, such as a cricket ground.