No need to set up commission: govt

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Saturday said there was no need for establishing any commission on the so-called foreign conspiracy as the country’s premier intelligence agencies had ruled out any such plot against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. “What is left to be investigated after the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting’s press release which clearly pointed out that there was no conspiracy. The premier intelligence agencies have also categorically stated [in the meeting] that they found no such thing [during investigation] which even gives an impression of the conspiracy,” she said while addressing a news conference. Marriyum said Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed, who had written and sent the cipher to the PTI government, also informed the NSC that there was no iota of a conspiracy in it. Imran Khan would not abandon his politics of lies and chaos even if the commission was set up on his request, she said recalling the PTI’s hostile political misadventures, mainly sit-ins, after a body was established to probe the election rigging on his demand. Imran Khan, she said, did not know how to run the country, but he knew the art of telling lies to the public. “He still thinks that he can mislead the nation, but it is not going to happen this time as he has been fully exposed,” the minister added. She said, “he (Imran) speaks nothing but lies,” but he created an illusion of the truth. He spoke lies with consistency that the people started believing in them, she added. Marriyum said Imran Khan’s narrative of foreign conspiracy, however, had been buried and he would soon be facing the consequences for harming the national interests. She said Imran Khan had orchestrated the foreign conspiracy drama to cover up his government’s failures. “If a conspiracy was hatched against him, then why did the National Assembly Speaker, who was from your party, let the motion moved, laid, approved and voted upon?” she questioned. She said the foreign conspiracy narrative propped up just after the PTI’s coalition partners announced to quit the alliance due to corruption, deceit, incompetency and hypocrisy of Imran Khan. There was foreign conspiracy until the allied parties stood with the PTI government, she added. Marriyum asked Imran Khan as to why he did not disclose “the conspiracy” soon after his government received the telegram from the Pakistani envoy in the US on March 8. The envoy had asked the government to issue a demarche to the country in question, but Imran’s government did nothing until March 27. The minister asked the PTI chairman what action he had taken on the telegram from March 8 to 27 and why his government had invited US officials in important events after the meeting of Ambassador Asad Majeed with the American official whom Imran Khan was blaming for the conspiracy. She recalled that the then foreign minister, on March 2, invited the US Under Secretary, who was purportedly conspiring against his government, to Pakistan and held a meeting with her on the sidelines of the OIC summit, held in Islamabad. Marriyum asked the PTI leadership whether Imran Khan was interfering in Indian election when he said in the Parliament that the Kashmir dispute would be resolved if Modi came to the power again. Soon after that statement, Imran Khan sold Kashmir to India, she said, asking the PTI leadership to explain whether he (Imran) was the manager of Modi’s election campaign. As regards the PTI’s chairman demand for the Chief Election Commissioner’s resignation, she said Imran wanted him to resign as he was expecting a decision against his party in the foreign funding case in next 30 days. She accused Imran Khan of laundering money through the accounts of his servants at Bani Gala residence. Imran Khan, she said, was destined to hold sit-ins as he did not boast even a single achievement which he made in his tenure, she said, adding the people would ask the PTI chairman questions about the hidden hands behind sugar, flour and other scams during his government, and above all money laundering of $70,000 as reported by State Bank of Pakistan in the foreign funding case pending in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for the last eight years. She said Imran Khan made botched attempts to minus former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from the country’s politics, who, however, was still there to call the shots. Lashing out at Imran Khan, she said the PTI chief had robbed even the country’s Baitul-Mal by selling precious gifts worth millions of rupees received from foreign dignitaries. He used Toshakhana for running his personal business. Imran-led government ruined the economy, handed over State Bank of Pakistan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Kashmir to India. Had he served the people he (Imran) still would have been the prime minister, she said, adding Imran Khan had failed to construct five million houses and creating 10 million jobs as promised by him during the 2018 election campaign. She said Imran Khan had rendered over 200,000 people jobless and pushed six million people below the poverty line during his over three and a half years government. He had robbed Rs 550 billion in the sugar scam and Rs 650 billion in the medicine scam, and devoured the Covid funds. Scores of patients had died due to unaffordable medicine prices, she added. The minister said Imran Khan should better have some retrospect before delivering lectures over Islam. He would be given response in the same tune if used filthy language against the country’s leadership, she warned. Responding to question, Marriyum said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had ordered foolproof security to Imran Khan.The people went to his (Imran’s) public meetings for enjoying free live concerts. In the past, she said, watch lists and stop lists were made in Prime Minister’s House. Responding to another question, she said Farah was the front-person of Imran in Punjab and Shahzad Akbar was his tout in Islamabad. The Nawaz government had left the GDP growth level at 6.1 percent in 2018, which nose-dived due to the ‘economic terrorism’ unleashed by the PTI government. She said elections would only be held after completing reforms in the electoral process, and Imran Khan would have to acknowledge constitutional requirements.