LONDON, June 8: In the larger interest of democracy the people of Pakistan were prepared even to swallow the bitter pill of NRO, but not at the cost of the person who had said no to a military dictator, said Imran Khan while speaking here on Saturday night.

The Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman told a over 500-strong sit-down but highly responsive gathering that he would even go to the extent of assuring Asif Ali Zardari that all those who were now campaigning for the deposed chief justice would request him in the spirit of ‘reconciliation’ to ignore the NRO once he was restored.

He hastened to add that reconciliation without truth was meaningless, but in the special circumstances the people of Pakistan were prepared to ignore this truth and allow Mr Zardari to keep his unearned billions.

He said Mr Zardari was afraid that after restoration the CJ would throw out the Dogar ruling on the NRO and start to re-examine the ordinance which, according to him, was based on total falsehood.

“But I assure Zardari on behalf of all of us that we would request the CJ not to reopen the NRO. We are prepared to ignore this crime of the century in the larger interest of democracy,” Imran pledged.

Perhaps with an eye on the disillusioned PPP workers who are perceived to be finding it difficult to accept Zardari’s leadership and seem suspicious of his intentions because of his temporising on various important issues like the judiciary and Musharraf, Imran spent a good part of his speech praising the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his leadership quality, his wisdom, his attempts to bring about a real social change in Pakistan and his ability to look the big powers in the eye.

In his opinion it was the assassination of Benazir Bhutto which had mobilised an enraged people of Pakistan to come out in big numbers to defeat all the plans put in place by Musharraf and his cronies to rig the February 18 election in favour of the PML-Q.Answering a question, he said the investigation against MQM’s Altaf Hussain could not make any headway so far because the previous government of Pakistan had kept refusing permission to Scotland Yard to visit Pakistan to interrogate witnesses in this connection.

To another question, he said if he were a Baloch he would perhaps also have taken up the gun to fight for his rights, “Islamabad has been treating Balochistan like a colony. We have benefited immensely from the wealth of the province but in return we have kept its people perpetually poor.”

He said since the Kalabagh dam was being opposed by the three smaller provinces, it would be wrong to try to build it, “but since water is going to be a matter of life and death for the country soon we must take up other water projects urgently”.