ISLAMABAD: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman on Wednesday said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Imran Khan had been using his workers to escape arrest.

Speaking at a press conference, Maulana Fazl, who is also the head of ruling Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), said Imran was being surrounded by trained rioters and not by simple party workers. “These troublemakers must be arrested and be presented before the court of law,” he said while talking about the government-PTI stand-off in Zaman Park at Lahore, where Imran Khan’s family house is located.

Maulana Fazl said Mr Khan was working on an international agenda of breaking Pakistan. “Today a statement of CIA representative Zalmay Khalilzad in favour of Imran Khan is an evidence that he (Imran) was creating unrest in the country on others’ agenda,” he added.

The JUI-F chief urged the state that it should take its course and use all it resources to foil Imran’s agenda. “The state must establish its writ and ensure Imran’s arrest for the “crimes he committed during his tenure,” he added.

JUI-F chief has always done politics of self-interest, alleges Gandapur

He said the former premier was a ‘coward’, who not only used his party workers as a shield, but also made them stand against the state. The state must establish its writ and ensure Imran’s arrest for the “crimes he committed during his tenure”, Maulana Fazl asserted.

He said many political leaders were arrested during the tenure of Imran’s government that even failed to prove a single allegation in a court of law. “Imran Khan should show some courage and face the law,” the JUI chief said, adding he was hell-bent upon spreading the chaos and anarchy in the country to achieve his ulterior motives.

He said the country could not be run on the whims of the person who first abandoned the parliament and then resorted to “inciting violence in the country”. He alleged that Mr Khan was striving to “implement his foreign agenda in the country”, but he would not be allowed to do so at any cost.

He said the situation in Lahore was grim as the entire city had been turned into a battlefield, causing inconvenience to the masses.

PTI’s reaction

Reacting to Maulana Fazl’s statement, PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur said the JUI-F chief had always fanned unrest and chaos in the country. “Maulana has always done politics of self-interest and for that he had targeted state institutions,” he added.

He said people were not ready to accept Maulana Fazl’s kind of leadership and the country’s future was in the hands of people and not the “conspirators” and “facilitators”.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2023