KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party secretary general Sardar Latif Khosa has stressed the need to take the trial of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf under Artical 6 of the constitution to its logical end. He said neither the government nor the special court trying him appeared sincere in the matter.

“Had the government and the court been sincere, instead of wasting four months and spending huge amounts on security measures, the case could have been proceeded using video links,” he said.

Mr Khoso, a former governor of Punjab and former attorney general, who was responding to questions after speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday, said there was provision in law to proceed in such cases through videoconferencing and if the government wanted to proceed with the trial the case would have been decided by now. He was accompanied by PPP deputy secretary general Qadir Khan Mandokhel.

In reply to another question, he said under the cover his mother’s sickness, he would be allowed to exit from the country.

Referring to the government talks with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, he said the TTP, whose hands were tainted with the blood of over 60,000 Pakistanis and soldiers, held talks just to buy time to spread out and relocate themselves after the army operation in North Waziristan in which no collateral damage was done. But, he said, the government had handed over a 16-kilometre area to the Taliban who were now demanding withdrawal of the army from North Waziristan.

He asked on what grounds the Taliban were being treated on equal footing with the state and whether they had accepted Pakistan and prepared to hold talks within the parameters of the constitution. He said the talks would not be fruitful.

Mr Khoso warned that the people would not accept any extra-constitutional agreement with the TTP.

In reply to another questions, he said the Rangers did not enjoy necessary powers and alleged that Lashkar-i-Jhangvi activists arrested by them were released on phone calls of interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

When asked about their meeting with PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari, he said a central executive committee meeting was scheduled to be held in Naudero on the eve of death anniversary of PPP founder chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He said it was Mr Bhutto who brought change in the system declaring the people as the source of power and making people powerful instead of the 22 families.

About the $1.5 billion assistance Pakistan had received from a friendly country, he claimed that the amount was not deposited in the national exchequer and instead had filled their own coffers.