Home Minister Rana Sanaullah on Saturday rejected claims that the cases against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Senator Azam Swati were part of “political vendetta”, saying Azam Swati targeted two institutions and not the government.
The leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N) said this while addressing a press conference in Lahore. The minister distanced the government from the cases against Azam Swati.
Sanaullah said that the senator defamed the army and the judiciary, not the government.
“If we wanted to file cases against them [PTI leaders] or treat them the way they treated us, we would have registered heroin cases against them,” he said. said
The Home Minister further said that cases are being registered against them as per the law. “Recently, the Balochistan High Court dropped the cases against them. On the other hand, we have fought our cases for years,” he said.
Moving on to the alleged audio leak of former finance minister Shaukat Tareen, Sanaullah said the former finance minister spoke of “sabotaging” the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.
He said that they do not have the power so they are bent on destroying the country’s economy.
Why should the cases against the members of the coalition government not be closed as they are being closed after trial? he asked.
Referring to the defamation case against a UK paper related to corruption allegations against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Sanaullah said that the newspaper “Daily Mail” admitted its mistake and apologized for it.
He claimed that the newspaper made this mistake at the behest of former federal minister Shahzad Akbar.
“Imran Khan has falsely accused others while he himself is involved in corruption,” the minister alleged, adding that he should also apologize to the nation for the false cases.
Government and opposition talks
Talking about the talks between the present government and the opposition, Sanaullah said that the government is ready for ‘unconditional talks’. He further said that President Dr. Arif Alvi is trying to play a role between the two parties.
The minister said that “Parvez Khattak, Asad Qaiser, Fawad Chaudhry and Shah Mahmood Qureshi have also done this, but Imran Khan did not listen to them”.
When asked about the return of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, the interior minister said that the party has requested him to participate in the upcoming election campaign, which the former prime minister has accepted.
‘Apolitical’
Sanaullah expressed hope that the “institution” would stick to its commitment to remain “non-political”.
The federal minister said during a media talk in Lahore, “Army is an organized institution where the policy of an individual does not work, that there will be the policy of [former COS] Bajwa Sahib or [Army Chief General] Asim Munir.”
He said it was the institution’s decision that the army would remain “non-political”.
He further said that this was and still is the policy of the institution.
Drug case
An acquittal petition has been filed against Sanaullah in the drug case.
During the hearing, Advocate Farhad Shah said that Assistant Director Imtiaz Ahmed and Inspector Ahsan Azam are denying the allegations leveled against their client.
The petition states that the case has been registered for political vendetta, so the PML-N leader should be acquitted.
