KARACHI: Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti has said facilities provided to Imran Khan in detention are more than those provided to an ordinary prisoner or a prime minister behind bars as he is, after all, “a laadla of courts”.

“The kind of facilities being provided to him in jail, they weren’t given to any prime minister, and a common citizen cannot even imagine them,” the minister said in an interview with Independent Urdu.

The caretaker minister mentioned former chief justice Umar Ata Bandial’s “good to see you” remarks for Imran, saying that such instances strengthened his argument. “We direly need judicial reforms here,” he believed.

Recalling the ex-premier’s arrest on May 9, Mr Bugti claimed directives were issued “within two minutes” to take the PTI chief to Islamabad Police Lines “in a Mercedes”.

At the same time, the caretaker minister believed most of the cases filed against PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif were “baseless”, insisting that “no favours” were being given to the PML-N.

Interior minister tells NAP committee there will be ‘no negotiations with terrorists’

On the matter of deporting undocumented immigrants, Mr Bugti said, “This country is for Pakistanis; Pakistanis will live in it. Foreigners who want to live here should come in a legal manner. We will welcome them.”

“If someone comes under a veil or by leaping over a wall, then we cannot give them the status of a guest.”

The minister said around 300,000 illegal immigrants had returned to their home country so far, of which over 99pc are Afghan nationals.

‘Firewall’ to regulate media

Asked about the “failure” in dealing with deadly clashes in Kurram, Mr Bugti said “the word failure is too big”. He said there was no doubt that “hostile agencies in the fault lines of Pakistan” always tried to increase violence. “There is an attempt to increase fault lines,” he added.

Referring to the Jaranwala incident in August and unrest in Gilgit Baltistan in early September, the minister said the “connections of conspiracies” in these places traced to “some­where else”.

Regarding the security situation, Mr Bugti talked about “planned” social media drives and said the country “basically needs a firewall that could regulate our media, especially social media”.

‘78pc of missing person cases solved’

Responding to a query about caretaker premier Anwaarul Haq Kakar being summoned by court in a ‘missing persons’ case, the interior minister said it was not appropriate if the court began summoning the premier on “every other minor issue”.

He said the number of missing persons in Pakistan was the “lowest in the region” and said it had become a “propaganda tactic against the country”. He said that 78pc of the cases mentioned on the lists provided to him had already been resolved.

NAP committee meeting

Meanwhile, the caretaker interior minister presided over the National Action Plan Coordination Committee meeting at Nacta headquarters in Islamabad on Friday to review the implementation of National Action Plan, adds APP.

The meeting decided that there would be no negotiations with terrorists. It also decided that all illegal immigrants would be deported.

The minister said that anti-terrorism agencies were being strengthened in all provinces, especially in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with required resources and training.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2023