LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan says unholy alliance of Tahirul Qadri and Imran Khan has been forged to enact bloodbath in the name of revolution under a foreign agenda.

Addressing a joint press conference with ministers Mian Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Bilal Yasin at 90-Shara-i-Quaid-i-Azam on Sunday, he termed the address of Tahirul Qadri acting and disclosed that when Mr Qadri had come to Lahore from Jhang, he used to visit film studios to become an actor. He said Mr Qadri was hatching a conspiracy of playing the same game with Pakistan which had been played by international forces in Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen. The minister said the PAT chief was implementing foreign agenda to bring the country at the verge of disaster by misleading innocent people, therefore, conscious people of the country should remain alert. “Those people who were rejected in general elections by the masses are now dreaming of coming into power through backdoor.”

Rana Mashhood said the call for revolution given by Tahirul Qadri was, in fact, the call to destroy the peace of the country.

“How Sheikh Rashid who was visiting Raiwind five months ago to join PML-N has become a revolutionary,” he questioned.

He said protection of life and property of people was the responsibility of the government and the “weapons recovered on the information of secret agencies from various areas of Punjab is proof of this fact that the strategy evolved by the government to stop the mischievous elements from coming to Lahore was correct, otherwise Mr Qadri had made a plan of terrorism in seven big cities of Punjab including Lahore.”

He said the nation had given a mandate for prosperity and stability of Pakistan to Mian Nawaz Sharif in the 2013 elections.

“Pakistan has just started a journey of progress but Tahirul Qadri, Imran Khan and some ‘political orphans’ are engaged in weakening Pakistan at the behest of foreign forces,” he said, adding that the people would not allow such foreign agents to do so.

He said: “If Tahirul Qadri along with his 20,000 people says that he will change the system and Imran Khan with 50,000 supporters can demand mid-term elections then we will stop Imran in Lahore with hundreds of thousands of people. Islamabad is far away and we will cordon off Zaman Park, Lahore.”

Meanwhile, PML-N media coordinator Muhammad Mehdi says Sunday’s speech exposed Tahriul Qadri’s personal agenda which he attempts to implement whenever Nawaz Sharif comes into power.

Reacting to Dr Qadri’s ‘Inqalab march’ call for Aug 14, he said the foreign national had dragged his feet from revolution by settling to a lesser objective of ousting the incumbent government.

He claimed that Dr Qadri became active whenever Nawaz Sharif came into power only because of being ignored by Mr Sharif.

He said Qadri at least admitted in his speech that there was no dearth of food for him by saying that he refused to take the meal to show solidarity with his followers, allegedly hungry because of short supplies of food due to blockade of Model Town for one week.

“The cleric ensured stocking of enough food for himself and his family but ignored the needs of his followers.”

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2014