Asked to stop making false allegations without any evidence
The army came down hard on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan Monday for his “irresponsible and baseless allegations” against a senior military officer, who is currently serving in the armed forces.
The Inter-Services Public Relations said that “irresponsible and baseless allegations” by PTI Chairman Imran Khan against a serving senior military officer without evidence were “extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable”.
During a rally on Saturday, the PTI chairman had accused a senior intelligence official of orchestrating plans to murder him.
“I am on the roads despite verifiable threats to life. I have already escaped an assassination attempt once. On the second occasion, I was able to sniff out murder planning,” he had said.
This is not the first time the ex-premier has made these claims. After an assassination attempt last year, Imran had held Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah and the senior intelligence official as being responsible for the bid to assassinate him and demanded they resign.
In a statement, the military’s media wing said: “Chairman PTI has levelled highly irresponsible and baseless allegations against a serving senior military officer without any evidence.
“This fabricated and malicious allegation is extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable.”
“This has been a consistent pattern for the last year wherein military and intelligence agencies officials are targeted with insinuations and sensational propaganda for the furtherance of political objectives,” it said.
“We ask the political leader concerned to make recourse to legal avenues and stop making false allegations,” the ISPR said, adding that the institution reserved the right to “take legal course of action against patently false and malafide statements and propaganda”.
A day earlier, PM Shehbaz had also criticised Imran and said: “Imran Niazi’s act of routinely maligning and threatening the Pakistan Army and Intelligence Agency for the sake of petty political gains is highly condemnable.”
“His levelling of allegations without any proof against Gen Faisal Naseer and officers of our Intelligence Agency cannot be allowed and will not be tolerated,” Shehbaz had added.
