TODAY, Pakistan and its people stand in confrontation with each other. Almost two years ago, an engineered vote of no confidence was moved against my government and a government cobbled together by the military establishment came into being”, claims incarcerated Imran sentenced and convicted in two criminal cases including embezzlement in the Tosha Khan case.
Imran’s favourite rightwing and known pro-Israel newspaper has carried his articles before. In October 2007, he wrote an article soon after the caravan of Benazir Bhutto was attacked by Al-Qaeda-TTP combine killing more than150 of her party workers, the tragic incident she had miraculously survived. Imran in his article actually blamed herself for the incident. An article that continues to haunt him.
The article begins with the false narrative from the very first sentence. No, Pakistan and its people are not in the confrontation. A group of Imran’s party, both inside and especially overseas, are in confrontation with the Pakistani state.
Imran Khan who has the dubious distinction of being the first Prime Minister ever to be voted out and sacked through the first ever parliamentary vote of no confidence, has not accepted his defeat and has never shown a sportsman’s spirit despite bragging about being a legendary sportsman. That is the fact. His article while shifts the blame for his state of affairs almost solely on the current army chief Gen Asim Munir, doesn’t tell the readers that he was sacked almost 7 months before he took over the baton. As soon as the process of selection for the position of the army chief began in November 2022, Imran lobbied very hard to stop Gen Munir. Imran actually was removed on April 10, 2022 when Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was the army chief. Imran’s opposition actually dates back to June 2019 when he removed Gen Munir as the DG, ISI, after the General did his duty to provide Imran the evidence of his current wife in corrupt practices.
While in his article Imran blames the military establishment for the removal of his government, he remains strangely mum about the US role in the removal. In March 2022 just days before his removal, he started beating anti-US drums creating an anti-US frenzy to whip up support for his post removal scenario.
Soon after his removal, Imran Khan accused the US for removing his government and launched a campaign accusing the Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu as a character in the conspiracy. Later Lu told the US Congress Committee that Imran’s party conveyed life threats to him and his family. Further down in his article, he talks about fake news his party created earlier saying Pakistan has agreed to give two military bases to the US. Since the fake news has been rebutted from all sides, so Imran in his article now actually thanks the US for not accepting the bases because of the human rights considerations. It also conveys a subliminal message that if he comes to power, he would be willing to offer the bases.
On the very first anniversary of May 9, the disgraced leader repeats the lie that he and his party were falsely accused of orchestrating the violent attacks on the civilian and military installations besides killing people besides trying to foment rebellion within the defence forces of a nuclear country. The footage, pictures, audio and forensic/technical evidence clearly points to the fact that Imran Khan and his cohorts had planned much in advance to stage these attacks if and when he was arrested. Imran’s party leaders had been publicly threatening to do that. His party leaders have publicly admitted how the targets were chosen and the leaders assigned to do that. All that evidence is publicly available but as fascist leaders do; he has blamed the victims instead of taking responsibility. Two days after the May 9 attacks, Imran told the media in Islamabad justifying the attacks, saying it might happen again, if he was arrested again.
Imran tries again to discredit the February 8 elections but fails to explain how come his party was able to get a landslide victory in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and why major leaders of the current government lost their seats to his party in the Punjab province in the “heavily rigged” elections. While Imran cries foul about the X ban and interference in the judiciary, he remains quiet on the draconian media laws enacted under his watch that pushed the Reporters Without Borders declaring him one of the “Press Predators”.
He also remains quiet about sacking and thrashing of journalists on his orders including the kidnapping of journalists, including one of them shot at who miraculously survived. He doesn’t say a word about the vindictive reference he sent to President Alvi, his party crony, against the senior puisne judge Qazi Faez Isa who is now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He is silent about implicating Mr Isa and his family in false cases besides their excessive surveillance on his orders. Mr Khan has also mentioned the state of economy but has not explained why he ruined the IMF agreement his government concluded and scuttled pushing the country to the verge of default to punish the incoming government. He is also quiet about borrowing more than any government had borrowed domestically and from outside, ever in the country’s history.
In his article Imran Khan talks about the rise of terrorism in Pakistan but conveniently forgets to mention how just before his removal he brought thousands of Taliban terrorists back from Afghanistan by undoing the National Action Plan launched unanimously by Pakistan’s parliament at the end of 2014 resulting in the massive defeat of the terrorists. Not only Imran Khan regime brought the same terrorists back from Afghanistan, they had fled to, after the operation, he also arranged the pardon of notorious terrorists like Muslim Khan and Mehmood Khan, known as the butchers of Swat.
Imran ends his article with a big joke. He says the military establishment has been trying for the last nine months to kill him. Imran, unlike other former prime ministers, starting from ZA Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif to Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, is provided with medical care, exercise machines, three large rooms to move to and fro and provided the best food of his choice at state expense. The paranoid (former) prime minister is much safer in the prison, something he has told many of his party workers, than outside, where he used to cover his head with a bucket on his head.
The writer is former interim Information Minister, Government of Pakistan.
