LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has alleged that the PML-N can never win elections without rigging and malpractices and that it has lately introduced the trend of “hooliganism and bloodshed” in its politics.

“The PML-N has largely been transformed into Punjab’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement,” he alleged at a press conference at PTI secretariat here on Thursday.

Condemning the killing of two PTI workers --- Khurram Shahzad and Arif --- during campaigning for local government elections in Lahore, Mr Khan called for arrest of the killers “belonging to the PML-N” and warned that otherwise the PTI activists would lay siege to the office of the inspector-general of police.

He also visited the houses of the two slain party workers and offered fateha for them.

The PTI chief said free, fair and transparent local government elections were impossible in the presence of retired Justice Riaz Kiyani, the member of the Election Commission of Pakistan from Punjab.

He called for deployment of army and Rangers personnel at sensitive polling stations in 12 districts of Punjab, where the first phase of local government elections would be held on Saturday.

Mr Khan urged people to come out of their homes on Saturday to vote for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf because “nations get only a few chances to change their fate for the better”.

He accused the PML-N government of using police to intimidate, harass and target its political opponents and called upon the nation to rise up against injustices, excesses and bloodshed.

“Policemen harassing PTI workers will be held accountable when the party will come to power,” he warned.

He alleged that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari were the biggest “dacoits” in the country and said that corrupt people, who made money while in power and then went abroad, had formed a “union”.

As soon as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Ehtesab Commission launched an investigation against a senator belonging to the Awami National Party, he said, Mr Zardari started making hue and cry and Maulana Fazlur Rehman termed the action a threat to democracy. “Democracy means accountability,” he said.

Comparing alleged highhandedness of Punjab police with professionalism of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police, Mr Khan said the latter had arrested a minister during local government elections and picked up another minister on different charges.

“Nobody including the KP chief minister interferes in police affairs. But in Punjab, even an SHO is appointed on the advice of PML-N legislators,” the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief said.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2015

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