KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that peace cannot be restored fully to Karachi unless political interference in the affairs of police was stopped.

He said on Friday that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had stopped interfering in the affairs of police. “If Thana culture is set right, not only will police get the right direction but peace will also be restored in Karachi,” Mr Khan said.

Talking to journalists at the airport, the PTI chairman, who arrived in Karachi on a tour of the city for raising funds for the Shaukat Khanum Hospital, reiterated that the nation could not make progress until people involved in money laundering were sent to prison and corruption was eliminated from society.

He said that after Eid he would launch a movement against corruption which would end only with the removal of the “corrupt government”.

He said that it was premature to say with certainty whether PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would join the movement.

Answering a question, he said the PML-N government was avoiding to formulate “proper” terms of reference for an inquiry into the Panama Papers issue because it knew that doing so would land Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in prison.

He alleged that people sitting in the car which hit the vehicle of his sister earlier in the day were goons of Maryam Nawaz.

“Who has given the right to money launderers to consider the country as their fiefdom? Who gave the authority to Maryam Nawaz to run the affairs of the government and roam the country like a princess?”

When asked if he planned to meet Mr Bhutto-Zardari in Karachi, Mr Khan replied in the negative.

He said he had come to Karachi to raise funds for the Shaukat Khanum Hospital and to meet Abdul Sattar Edhi and members of the late Amjad Sabri’s family.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2016