Former interior minister Sheikh Rashid appealed to the state and the establishment on Monday to declare general amnesty, warning that the prevailing circumstances and the economy were in a dire situation.
Talking to the media outside Adiala Jail, Rashid said that Pakistan was headed towards a situation which was witnessed in Kenya recently, where people rose up against the government and torched parliament building in Nairobi.
“I appeal to the establishment for amnesty,” he said, while referring to the arrest of several Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activist after the May 9 violence last year. He also mentioned the arrest of PTI’s Sanam Javed from her lawyer’s chamber.
He said that there were hundreds of cases, adding that if the cross-examination of witnesses took one week each, those cases would take 10 years to conclude. “The punishment is two years; give that punishment and we will serve it.”
The former minister said that electricity tariffs were increasing. He charged that the government would further aggravate the situation to a point where the matter could not be handled by anyone else.
“The country is heading towards a situation like that in Kenya. People here are cursing this government,” he said. “Nawaz Sharif [the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz] will bring a new narrative but still the people will be left humiliated.”
He claimed that people were jobless but the government had banned recruitment on vacancies, adding that 7.7 million people had submitted their passports to different embassies with the intention to leave the country. He praised the judiciary for its recent decision in the case of reserved seats.
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