LAHORE: Adviser to Prime Minister on Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Qamar Zaman Kaira has warned Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan that the government would not allow choking of the federal capital by taking the route through judiciary.

“[You] will not be allowed to choke Islamabad through the judiciary’s route as neither the judiciary nor the government will allow you to do so,” he said on Sunday while referring to a letter the PTI chief wrote to the Supreme Court chief justice seeking direction to the government for allowing him unhindered access to his protest march on Islamabad.

“If you have to come to Islamabad then satisfy the government and the court, sit down [with the government] and negotiate [terms for the march with the government],” Mr Kaira said while talking to the media at the residence of Punjab PPP leader Osman Malik.

Munawwar Anjum, Aslam Gill, Azizur Rehman Chan, Afnan Butt, Barrister Amir Hassan, Faisal Mir and others were also present.

Responding to a question, Mr Kaira said that the apex court should also remember that Imran Khan had refused to accept any court verdict on the protest march venue issue in Islamabad when the three-judge bench had directed the government to give PTI access to H-9 Park for holding a public meeting there.

He said the opposition and the Supreme Court Bar and not the government had approached the Supreme Court though Imran and other PTI leaders had been threatening a bloody long march days before May 25.

He said none would believe that the judiciary was not aware of the actual PTI plans.

He told a questioner that had the government not stopped the marchers the judiciary and media would have been criticising the administration for not checking the entry of the miscreants.

Mr Kaira, who is also a senior PPP leader, said that his party had counseled then prime minister Imran Khan in its public march to resign.

He said that the PTI government was ousted through a democratic process without the use of any threat and intimidation, whereas Imran Khan had been attacking the constitutional institutions while in power and now planned to physically attack the federal capital.

He said since Imran Khan was removed from power, he was counting days and hours [to see how to re-assume power].

The PM’s adviser said the PTI leader thought he could bend the government through the use of force and threats overlooking the fact that even dictators failed to force the PPP to bow down.

He asked which party had threatened to launch a bloody march and which party threatened to suspend the working of the government in Islamabad. Mr Kaira said that the option of dialogue with the opposition PTI was still open and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had extended an invitation for the purpose from the floor of parliament.

However, the PTI leadership would have to return to parliament and form a committee to hold the dialogue, he added.

Mr Kaira held the previous government responsible for the current wave of inflation and political uncertainty ruining the economy and announced that the government would shift some of the financial burden to the masses and plug the rest of the gap between revenue and expenses through savings in official expenditure.

Responding to a question about the PTI’s demand of holding polls within three months, he said if the elections were to be held in a short span of time then why Imran Khan did not procure electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the purpose while in power.

He clarified that voting rights of the overseas Pakistanis had not been eliminated through the new law; rather it was proposed to reserve seats for them in all the elected houses. He said the earlier law did not ensure secrecy of voters and sanctity of vote.

He said that the independence of Kashmir from the clutches of India was at the core of the PPP.

He said Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was raising the issue of Kashmir as well as of wrong conviction of Yasin Malik at all international forums.

He said that the Foreign Office had demanded that Yasin Malik’s wife and children be given access to him on all legal and humanitarian grounds.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2022