- Minister pays tribute to ex-COAS for positive role during PTI’s 2014 sit-in
- ‘An honourable judge should not likened country’s savior to criminal Sicilian mafia’
Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique urged Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan to avoid leg-pulling and focus on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa instead.
“In trying to pull us down, Imran Khan is also pulling himself down as well. If we go down, your turn won’t come next,” he said while addressing party workers here on Saturday. He said that it was obvious PTI chief’s advisers were not giving him sound advice.
Imran should learn the lessons that the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) learnt after decades of rivalry, he said, adding that his party would not stoop to the level of the PTI leaders and its young workers who do not realise the decades of hard work and sacrifices political leaders gave for democracy.
Mentioning examples from the past, he said that the elected leaders have always been removed by unconventional means. “Why is that whenever PML-N is in power due to popular vote, there are attempts to remove it through unconventional means,” he questioned.
He pointed out that an honourable judge had likened the savior of the country to the Godfather which should not have happened. “If Imran Khan or Sheikh Rasheed had said this, we would have considered it political rivalry, but we were likened to the Sicilian mafia, which is a criminal organisation,” he told the gathering.
The minister passionately spoke out against conspiracies being hatched to dethrone Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. “Nawaz Sharif tried to put the country on the right track,” he said. “However, we were prevented from doing our work after securing votes,” he said.
He paid tribute to the prime minister, referring to him as the saviour of Pakistan. He said that he had been imprisoned in every era since PML-N had never shaken hands with dictatorial forces. He said that it was PM Nawaz who had led the lawyers’ movement in broad daylight despite threats to his life whereas Imran Khan was in hiding at that time.
“At that time, there was 100 per cent chance that our lives would be lost,” he said. “Nawaz Sharif received calls from two countries whose leaders advised him not to partake in the march,” he added. Saad also took shots at the PPP and the PML-Q leadership when he said that Asif Zardari was dismissed by the public due to his abysmal performance.
He said that during the PTI sit-in protest in 2014, the PTV Headquarters was attacked in the federal capital. He paid tribute to former army chief General Raheel Sharif for playing a positive role in the entire episode. He said that during the protests, demands were made from the ‘umpire’ to raise his finger.
“The ‘umpire’ clearly understands that he is a protector of the law,” he said. The minister also spoke out against the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), reminding them that they were an investigating body and not an interrogative one.
“Are you conducting an investigation or fishing for big names? Why was Hussain Nawaz’s picture leaked? Did anyone inform the nation about that,” he asked. He said that the party would always rebut these accusations. He then implored the JIT to question itself whether it was trying to unearth the truth or just wandering aimlessly.