Ballot or bloodshed, Imran sees revolution

PTI chief asks those in power to stand with the people

LAHORE:

 

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has said his party would bring revolution in the country through election.

Addressing mammoth crowd at Chan Da Qila Chowk in Gujranawala and in a tweet on Monday, on the fourth day of the Haqeeqi Azadi March, Imran said: “The sea of people along our March on the GT Road. For 6 months I have been witnessing a revolution taking over the country. Only question is will it be a soft one through the ballot box or a destructive one through bloodshed?”

He went on say that his party was going to bring a peaceful revolution in the country through ballot, adding that everyone was getting message that a revolution was about to come in the country.

The PTI chief asked lawyers fraternity that he direly needed their support for the peaceful revolution in the country. “The country is under siege of corrupts,” he maintained.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Imran said, “is involved in corruption of Rs16 billion”, he said, adding that his elder brother, [former prime minister] Nawaz Sharif could not find a medicine for himself in three years while his daughter claimed “she does not have any property even in Pakistan”.

Without addressing anyone, the PTI chief said that thieves were looting the country, while the watchman was playing the role of a silent spectator. “The present circumstances do not allow the watchman cannot remain neutral”.

Meanwhile, addressing a mammoth crowd in Kamoke on the fourth day of the Haqeeqi Azadi March, Imran said that his message was for those who had allowed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to be in office.

“Those in power must consider whom the people are standing with. The establishment never stands against the nation. It is the populace and the armed forces, which jointly strengthen the country,” he added.

Referring to his recent electoral victory in NA-45 Kurram, he emphasised that the people of Pakistan were voting for his party in successive by-elections. “Those in power should see where the Pakistani nation stands,” he said.

Stop supporting thieves,” Imran said. “When former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had removed both of these thieves [Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari] the entire nation stood with the establishment,” he recalled.

“People knew that they were thieves but later he gave them NRO [political amnesty through the National Reconciliation Ordinance]. They looted the country for another decade,” he said.

Now, the PTI chief continued, these “thieves” had been imposed again after ‘dry cleaning’, warning that the Pakistani nation was not “sheep or goats” they would not accept this decision.

Imran reiterated that his criticism of the military was constructive because he was a Pakistani, who “lives in and will die in Pakistan”. He added that he did not ‘run to London’ whenever there was a case against him, referring to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif.

Imran announced that he would file a defamation suit of Rs10 billion against Chief Election Commissioner Sultan Sikander Raja for questioning his integrity, and honesty in the decisions in prohibited funding and Toshakhana cases.

“I will take him to the court and make him pay so that he would not dare damage the reputation of anyone on someone else’s instructions”, Imran said and added that the money he would win in the defamation suit against Raja would go towards treatment for patients at Shaukat Khanam Hospitals and for students’ education at the Namal University and Al Qadir University.

Imran claimed the decisions given by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against him in the Toshakhana and prohibited funding references were given on the instruction of the “imported” government. “The CEC is a house servant of the Sharif. I know that who else is giving instruction to the commission,” he said.

Addressing the courts, Imran said that the entire nation was looking to them for justice. He thanked the Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial for hearing Azam Swati and Shahbaz Gill’s pleas regarding the custodial torture against them.

He underlined that the country would be strong when the institutions were strong and institutions get stronger only when the nation stood with them. He said that the institutions would lose all power if the people opposed them.

Imran reiterated it is a defining moment for Pakistan to bring of rule of law in the country. The nation would not be prosperous until there was justice, and justice equated to freedom, he added.

He urged his supporters to follow him to Islamabad however possible, in any vehicle. “Come on foot if you must. This is the war for freedom, and everyone must make sacrifices,” he said.

Earlier before leading the march, Imran visited the residence of deceased journalist Sadaf Naeem to offer his condolences to the bereaved family and prayed for the eternal peace of the departed soul.

Sadaf Naeem, a reporter of private media outlet, died during the PTI’s long march in Sadhoki in an unfortunate accident on Sunday. Later when the PTI chief reached his container to lead the long march, Imran and all participants also offered prayers for the departed soul.

At the end of the day four, PTI chief announced to spend a day in Gujranwala on Tuesday (today), the city of wrestlers. PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said that  PTI supporters from Karachi would leave for Islamabad via Hyderabad and Sukkur, while the convoy from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa would leave through Bada. All these convoys would reach Islamabad to demand free and fair elections in the country, he added.