Pakistan Government Plans Long Legal Battle Against Imran

ISLAMABAD: As Imran Khan's controversial remarks has raised concerns over the appointment of Pakistan's new Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in November, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that the ruling government is gearing up to fight a long legal battle against the former Prime Minister in the coming days.

Asif said some actions and steps have already been taken against Khan's ongoing-targeted attacks on the country's military establishment and other institutions including judiciary, adding that more such actions will be taken in the coming days.

"Our legal experts are examining it and they will act accordingly," the Defence Minister said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad.

"The legal actions against Imran Khan will be based on cooked up cases for political victimization he had launched during his last tenure. Legal proceedings would not depict political vendetta or score settling on political grounds."

Terming Khan's recent comments about the appointment of the new army chief, in which he had said that "the current corrupt leadership would want to bring in an army chief of their choice so that he would not hold them accountable for their corrupt practices and theft of people's money", as inimical designs backed by the enemy's agenda to attack the country's economy and defence institutions, Asif linked the remarks to India.

"After independence, our perpetual enemy India attempted to weaken Pakistan by targeting our economy and armed forces. In Faisalabad, Imran Khan made comments on COAS appointment. In the past few months Imran Khan clearly targeted these two areas," he stated.

Reminding Khan on how he was ousted from power, Asif said that the former premier was removed through a no-confidence motion after his allies decided to leave him. "But after that, Imran Khan started targeting forces and called them names like neutrals and animals," he said.

"Imran Khan alleged that the senior general next in line to be the COAS are going to provide illicit protection to the misappropriation of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) leaderships," Asif said adding that "there is no commitment in their oath to defend the politicians if they do so then they will violate their own oath". "Imran Khan is on record for saying that they cannot be neutral and he demanded protection from them." (IANS)

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