(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION – The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has “no direct role” in nationwide elections due July 25, the group’s spokesman said Tuesday, after widespread allegations that it is plotting to manipulate the polls.
Instead the Taliban will deploy thousands of militants in the lead-up to the polling day to help ensure the vote goes smoothly, TTP spokesman Muhammad Khorasani said.
“The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have no direct role,” he told a packed press conference at an undisclosed location, adding: “Let me make it clear, that we have no direct role.”
He also said that certain political personalities are safer today due to the TTP. Khorasani further denied involvement in the political process of the Taliban, maintaining that the only process the group is involved in is strictly militant.
Khorasani maintained that the group’s militants will only have a role to facilitate certain electables. The TTP spokesman said the group would remain neutral among those electables and not in the case of others who are not those electables.
“In case of any irregularity, our political wings would observe and point out to the militant wing, which take the corrective measures on their own,” Khorasani confirmed.
Furthermore, the TTP spokesman confirmed that the group’s troops will be deployed to not only target the non-electables, but also for the provision of the secure environment to conduct the election in free, fair and transparent manner for the electables.