MIRPUR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan assailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday and asked people not to vote for those who had their wealth stashed abroad. Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain also came in for flak as Mr Khan likened him to a despot.

Addressing an election campaign rally for Barrister Sultan Mahmood, PTI’s regional chief and former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Khan said: “Every despot has his time (to leave). Altaf Hussain, your time has also come.”

Know more: MQM dubs Imran statement 'Altaf phobia'

“I should talk about Azad Kashmir, but the enthusiasm of the audience here reminds me of Karachi and public meetings of Altaf Hussain where people are forcibly driven,” he said. “Altaf Hussain addresses them by telephone from London and the frightened audience looks like ‘living corpses’. They are scared that if they do not laugh when Altaf Hussain asks them to do so, they will be shot dead by a ‘sector in charge’,” Mr Khan said.

The PTI chief announced that he would hold his next public meeting in Karachi “to defeat Altaf Hussain”.

Imran Khan said the message he wanted to convey to the people of AJK and Pakistan was to break the idols of fear.

People urged to reject leaders having assets abroad

“Time has come to emancipate yourselves and stand for your rights. You should snatch, not beg for your rights,” he said.

The PTI leader alleged that Mr Sharif and Mr Zardari were leading up the garden paths. “I have broken their partnership.”

Referring to the recent arrest of a fashion model for allegedly trying to smuggle $500,000 out of the country, Mr Khan said people from Pakistan had purchased property worth $4.3 billion in other countries by transferring their money in dollars, which had led to devaluation of rupee and surge in poverty.

Chiding ‘corrupt politicians’ for allegedly transferring their wealth abroad, he praised the Kashmiri diaspora for remitting their hard-earned money to Pakistan.

“The country is becoming heavily indebted but corrupt politicians are becoming filthy rich,” he said, alleging that both Mr Sharif and Mr Zardari had become billionaires after coming to power.

The PTI chief asked the audience to pledge that they would not vote for leaders who had their assets outside Pakistan.

“If you do so, you will continue to suffer,” he said.

He listed measures that he said the PTI-led government had taken in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to improve governance, and vowed to replicate them across the country and AJK after coming to power.

He predicted that Mr Sharif would soon be sent packing, because “rigging in the 2013 general elections is about to be unearthed by a judicial commission”.

“This is the year of elections. Pakistanis should gear themselves up for it,” he said.

Mr Khan said that the PTI would empower the AJK government.

“Decisions about AJK will be taken in AJK, but accountability will remain in my hands,” he said, asking people not to disappoint him in the March 29 by-elections for a Legislative Assembly seat.

Party leaders Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Jehangir Tareen, Chaudhary Sarwar, Azam Khan Swati and Barrister Mahmood also spoke.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2015

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