LAHORE: Regretting reports of preparing new references against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmed Khan Bhachar says the references against the PTI leader and cases against activists are aimed at splitting and weakening the party.

Talking to reporters on Wednesday, he expressed regret over media reports that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had prepared new references against the former prime minister and was waiting for an appropriate time to file them so that he would remain behind bars even if he was acquitted in the Iddat case.

Mr Khan has been exonerated or his sentence suspended in three earlier cases.

Mr Bhachar said that, as if the May 9 incidents were not enough, law enforcers had begun using the mention of the Hamoodur Rehman Commission report as an excuse for victimizing PTI workers.

He said the FIA had summoned three PTI top leaders over a controversial tweet posted from the PTI founder’s X (formerly Twitter) account, mentioning the commission’s report on the 1971 debacle.

Referring to unabated police actions against PTI activists, he said that now the only yardstick for measuring police performance was to arrest the opposition party’s elected representatives and activists and torture them with the objective of changing their loyalties. However, he added, a political party could not be broken through such tactics.

About the government’s tall claims of law and order in Punjab, the opposition leader said that every time they had requisitioned the assembly session on the law and order issue, it seemed that the rulers were being kept ill-informed of the ground realities.

About the May 9 attacks, he said why the government was afraid of forming a judicial commission to separate facts from fiction.

He said that the government was not nominating judges to the special courts, and PTI workers were facing detention pending their bail pleas for months. “Only after the Lahore High Court’s intervention were judges appointed, and thus bail applications of hundreds of incarcerated activists were accepted.”

He said that the sanctity of chadar and char dewari had been violated while arresting party activists in May 9 cases, as many of them were held on the so-called geo-fencing report.

He demanded that the government provide them with a record of the number of PTI activists and cases registered against them.

About denial of permission to the PTI for holding public meetings, he recalled that no party had been barred from holding meetings or demonstrations when the PTI was in power.

About the Punjab Defamation Bill 2024, he said the PTI would challenge it in a court of law once it was signed into law by the governor.

He said that the PPP was playing on both sides of the wicket on the bill. “Had it been serious in blocking the bill, its MPAs would not have abstained from assembly proceedings when the bill was tabled in the house.”

Also, being an ally of the government and holding a number of constitutional offices, it could effectively pressure the government to withdraw the bill, he added.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2024