ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan slammed PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, saying that meeting the opposition leader would be tantamount to compromising over Sharif family crimes.
While responding to live telephone calls of the general public on Sunday, the prime minister said that he did not consider Shehbaz Sharif as an opposition leader. “I see him [Shehbaz] as a criminal rather than leader of the opposition in the upper house of parliament,” the prime minister said.
The prime minister said that he would not give Sharif’s family any NRO because doing so would be huge treason with the nation. PM Imran Khan said that he did not consider Shehbaz Sharif as an opposition leader rather he treated him as a man who had committed serious crimes against the country.
Responding to a query, the prime minister said an opposition leader had a stature but Shehbaz Sharif was delivering lengthy speeches in the parliament without caring to reply to graft and corruption cases pending with the courts.
“He did not want to respond to Ramzan sugar mills case, transferring of Rs3.7 billion in the account of a peon Maqsood and Rs16 billion in the accounts of other servants. They were accounted for Rs8 billion cases pending with NAB,” he added.
The prime minister said the Sharif family should take some pity on this country. He questioned by using delaying tactics in the courts, what kind of service they were rendering to the democracy and setting an example for a civilised society. “If I meet him, it will amount to acceptance of their wrongdoings (corruption) as no longer a punishable crime in a civilised society,” he stressed.
He regretted that different trends had been set in the society for the powerful and the weak. “The ordinary criminals had been languishing in the jails and the powerful elite was residing outside the country. Those criminals had been showered with flower petals,” he said. If such were the standards in society, then set the jails open for the ordinary criminals, he said, adding that he was ready to talk to everyone but would not talk to such elements who had siphoned off the country’s wealth.
“Unless we follow the path of our Holy Prophet (PBUH), we cannot aspire to get prosperity,” he said, adding (Imran Khan) had no magic wand to set the wrong things right. The prime minister opined that a society had to fight such crimes and trends.
To another question, he invited the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to return back and face the criminal cases. “I am waiting for your return to Pakistan, please return back,” he added. About the opposition parties’ proposed march, the prime minister said the public would not come out on the streets to save their corruption. He said the ‘corrupt junta’ could not befool the public anymore.
The prime minister further said that his party would complete its current term in power and would also return to government in the next term, owing to tackling of historic and huge economic challenges faced by any past government in the country’s history.
He also warned the opposition parties that he would become more dangerous in case he did not remain in power. “You will not find any place to hide. Whatever you have done with the country, the people knew it very well, the volcano is brewing. They will flee the country and hide in London,” he added.
Referring to Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister said he would not return back to Pakistan out of his love for the ill-gotten wealth. “Often they floated rumours of deals to save their party from disintegration,” he said, adding they were the elements whose time had run out. “The way they treated the country, the nation is not ready to pardon them,” he observed.
The prime minister said a three-time prime minister has been expressing his ignorance about the illegal accumulated wealth and the properties in UK worth billion of rupees. Even his sons were declaring themselves as citizens of UK to evade accountability, he added.
