Will raise child porn case in NA: Imran Khan

PTI chief addresses rally held for by-election campaign in Haripur on Sunday

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan announced on Sunday his party will raise the matter of child abuse in Kasur in the National Assembly.

“It is extremely embarrassing for all of us," said Imran while addressing a rally held for NA-19 by-election campaign in Haripur. "We should ask ourselves, if this had to happen why we created Pakistan."

A gang of 20 to 25 men are believed to have filmed as many as 400 videos of sexual abuse involving at least 280 children belonging to Hussain Khan Wala village near Kasur.

The PTI chief called for punishment of all those involved in the heinous crime.

Read: Police play down Kasur child porn scandal

“Police and politicians committed this gruesome crime, as I have read in the papers,” he said.

Meanwhile, praising the local bodies in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), Imran said such a system empowered the common man.

“If local bodies system is implemented, people will not have to go to high-ups and beg them for their due rights,” he said.

Asking people to vote for his party candidate in the by-elections, he said it was a fight between the new and old Pakistan.

“The old Pakistan was where ISI chief confessed to have bribed people and his case is still in pending, whereas in new Pakistan, PTI’s lawmaker was charged and arrested for doing corruption," said the PTI chairman. "For the first time in Pakistan an incumbent minister was arrested over corruption charges and this happened in PTI’s tenure."

Read: PTI not involved in rigging, ready for re-elections: Imran Khan

While he accepted his party's failure in completely revamping the health and education infrastructure in the province, he vowed to work until there was a change.

“I regret that there are two issues we have not worked on: hospitals and universities. Until we bring about a new system we cannot change the deplorable conditions of hospitals in KP."

He urged those present not to become obstacles in the way to ‘new Pakistan’ and vote for his candidate.

On June 19, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Jawwad S Khawaja had ordered re-polls in NA-19 after a tribunal ruled in favour of PML-N candidate Omar Ayub Khan.

Khan had provided proof of irregularities and demanded de-seating of PTI candidate Amir Zaman.

Suspending Zaman’s National Assembly membership on December 31, 2013, the tribunal ordered re-polls in seven out of NA-19’s 437 polling stations.