Govt says Imran cannot fool nation

The government on Wednesday accused PTI chief Imran Khan of diverting the public attention away from its prohibited funding case by running a malicious campaign against the army on social media.

Taking to his Twitter account, PM Shehbaz said the entire nation had witnessed how Imran has resorted to using epithets against the leadership of the Pakistan Army.

“Will the families of the martyrs forget all this?” he asked and added that the former prime minister was only capable of fooling himself, not the nation.

Reacting to the PTI chief’s address to party supporters via video link from Islamabad, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said both Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi tasked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) social media teams to troll the army’s top brass and its martyrs for diverting public attention away from its foreign (prohibited) funding which had been proved after eight years.

"The PTI did trolling of the army’s martyrs. Bushra Bibi would have asked ‘Arslan Beta (son)’ to run malicious campaign on 'Shuhda' (martyrs) when the party foreign funding came under discussion on public platforms.

“The directives directly came from Bani Gala," she said while addressing a news conference.

Referring to the PTI’s leader Shehbaz Gill statement in the media, she said Imran Khan was playing a "dangerous game" as call for mutiny in the Army's rank and file was a red line that nobody would be allowed to cross at any cost.

Referring to the PTI’s leader Shehbaz Gill’s statement in the media, she said Imran Khan was playing a “dangerous game”, adding that attempts to galvanise “mutiny” within the army’s ranks were a red line that nobody would be allowed to cross at any cost.

She said that the trolls who were nabbed by the authorities admitted that the campaign was run on the directives of PTI leadership.

"Enough is enough," she said while announcing zero tolerance against those who would try to incite division within the state institution, and make efforts to spread chaos and anarchy in the country.

She, on the occasion, played some clips of Imran Khan's interviews with various local and international media channels in which he spewed venom against the state institutions, to assert that the PTI's chief was a "fascist person" who is hell-bent on destroying the country in exchange of the funding received by his party from foreign nationals and firms.

"These are a few statements of Imran Khan, rest is the history," she said, adding the current campaign against the Army martyrs reflected his fascism and the "dirty politics" which entirely based on hatred, deception, lies and anarchy.

Marriyum said Imran Khan was reaping what he had sown in the politics i.e. hatred and animosity. "No patriot can even think of trolling the Pakistan Army soldiers and officers who sacrificed their lives while carrying out rescue and relief activities in the flood-hit areas," she remarked.

She regretted that Imran Khan could use the K-P’s government helicopter for creating chaos and anarchy in the country, but not to visit the flood-affected areas and people in Balochistan and South Punjab on instructions of his wife who barred him from attending a funeral or a place where deaths occurred.

Marriyum said Imran had no comparison with Nawaz Sharif, who became prime minister thrice but never compromised over the Constitution. From the first day, the Constitutional supremacy was the mainstay of PML-N and Nawaz Sharif's ideology.