Former cricket star and the Chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan again emphasized on Monday to insist on holding a sit-in outside the General Headquarters (GHQ) and cantonment if the armed forces arrested him. When talking to the journalists from Adiala Jail, Khan stressed, ‘‘The things I said about a protest outside the GHQ were presented as if I conceded to wrongdoing on May 9. Nevertheless, I mentioned this directive three times in my Vlogs and discussed it, twelve times in police investigations. ’’
Khan said he had intelligence of an assassination attempt on him outside the Judicial Complex on the morning of March 18. He stressed, “I said to the party, I said that if the army and rangers detain me, the party must demonstrate outside the GHQ and cantonments. ”
To violence on May 9, Khan commented, ‘The protest went violent because it was planned in advance and our people were involved too’ and added that the CCTV footage, which the public did not see was allegedly abducted by Rangers adding that he would soon file a case against Rangers for kidnapping him from the high court and asked who ordered his arrest.
There is no concern for human rights, liberty, and press freedom in the government, said Khan while also demanding that a judicial commission be formed for a proper probe into the crackdown on social media, the arrest of 75-year-old cancer patient Raoof Hasan for circulating a cartoon. He alleged the government was scared of PTI and wanted to eliminate it through the army and also condemned the budget recently presented.
As the voice of the democratic public, Khan defended social media against calls of being a ‘digital terrorism’. He stated that all the institutions and even the National Security especially the military should be free and open for criticism and impressionatively said that the military support for the incumbent government, economy, and democracy will equally be avail.
Khan offered a PTI rally in Swabi on 5 August saying that it would be a show of power of the political party and it would be a tactical move to avoid unwanted social commotion.