LAHORE: Revealing differences among the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on arrest of the PTI chairman, party leader and Federal Minister Mian Javed Latif has demanded giving priority to deciding Toshakhana, corruption and foreign funding cases against Imran Khan instead of arresting the former prime minister for threatening the judiciary and the police.

“The Toshakhana, corruption and foreign funding cases against Imran Khan should be adjudicated at the earliest instead of taking him into custody for his threats to a woman judge and police officers in his Rawalpindi public meeting speech,” Mr Latif told reporters here on Monday.

The nation must be informed of the corruption by Imran Khan and how he sold off national secrets to foreign countries (apparently a reference to sharing details of the CPEC project with the IMF), he said.

He challenged double standards being adopted in adjudicating cases of the PTI chairman and other politicians. “If dozens of PML-N leaders can be disqualified under contempt of court and other charges then why cannot be Imran Khan? Who are those who are not disqualifying Imran Khan after the Toshakhana case is proved? Do we have to wait for eight years for (Khan’s) disqualification?”

Javed Latif wants to prioritise Toshakhana, foreign funding cases

Saying that states do not give decisions by seeing faces, he questioned why Imran Khan was not being disqualified in Toshakhana case, while Nawaz Sharif had been disqualified for life for not receiving salary from the firm of his son.

Demanding a level-playing field for all political players, the federal minister said Imran Khan’s recorded speech was being broadcast while there was a complete ban on broadcasting speeches of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz.

He said the sacrifice of politics to save the state is not complete until the role of the people who brought the national economy to the current state is not exposed.

He said Chief Minister Parvez Elahi had been saying as the Punjab Assembly speaker that the PTI was formed by breaking up the Q-League.

He said people could not become a nation without the supremacy of constitution and law and that the situation would not improve until Nawaz Sharif’s narrative of giving respect to the vote is adopted.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2022