ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday slammed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former PM Imran Khan for launching a “vile, sinister and malicious” social media campaign about an assassination attempt on Army Chief General Asim Munir.
Sharif, whose term in office ends next month, ordered the authorities to take legal action against those involved in such “malicious” campaigns both at home and abroad.
He lashed out at Imran a day after hundreds of Pakistani-Americans had gathered outside the White House in Washington, demanding an end to state and government actions against the PTI chief and workers.
The PM observed that the media drive against armed forces and its chief did not fall within the domain of freedom of expression, but it was only a conspiracy, and it was a legal responsibility to eradicate such tendency with full strength.
He noted that similar minds were involved in the conspiracy of May 9, when PTI demonstrators attacked government and Army’s facilities.
“It is a clear message to 9 May planners, facilitators and handlers that conspiracy against Pakistan and its institutions will be crushed,” Sharif warned in an official statement issued by his office.
The PM termed the smear campaigns a result of the planning of miscreants, who, according to him, have again become active against the political and economic stability in the country.
The new media campaign was a part and parcel of that abhorrent campaign, which was launched against shuhada (martyrs), he maintained, referring to attacks on military monuments.
Sharif said the nation would foil such attempts in such a manner as it had frustrated the attempt on May 9 to stir violence and vandalism in the country, a reference to PTI supporters who had ransacked military and government facilities following Imran’s arrest in an alleged graft case.
According to Sharif, Imran’s trick of using proxies to threaten the Army Chief alleging an assassination attempt has been badly exposed. “The former PM (Imran) was desperately working to coerce his way back into power after failure in a methodically planned attack on the state symbols,” The PTI chief, the PM said, fails to realise that “the time of his politics of intimidation, violence and hatred is over”.
“Through such highly condemnable antics, he is only exposing himself, the core of which is defined by putting his personal interest (power grab) over everything else,” the PM said.
He reiterated that the people of Pakistan and the political parties strongly stood behind Army Chief Gen Munir and the armed forces, and they would thwart any attempt and conspiracy at undermining Pakistan Army’s prestige, honour and integrity.
Sharif, whose term in office ends next month, ordered the authorities to take legal action against those involved in such “malicious” campaigns both at home and abroad.
He lashed out at Imran a day after hundreds of Pakistani-Americans had gathered outside the White House in Washington, demanding an end to state and government actions against the PTI chief and workers.
The PM observed that the media drive against armed forces and its chief did not fall within the domain of freedom of expression, but it was only a conspiracy, and it was a legal responsibility to eradicate such tendency with full strength.
He noted that similar minds were involved in the conspiracy of May 9, when PTI demonstrators attacked government and Army’s facilities.
“It is a clear message to 9 May planners, facilitators and handlers that conspiracy against Pakistan and its institutions will be crushed,” Sharif warned in an official statement issued by his office.
The PM termed the smear campaigns a result of the planning of miscreants, who, according to him, have again become active against the political and economic stability in the country.
The new media campaign was a part and parcel of that abhorrent campaign, which was launched against shuhada (martyrs), he maintained, referring to attacks on military monuments.
Sharif said the nation would foil such attempts in such a manner as it had frustrated the attempt on May 9 to stir violence and vandalism in the country, a reference to PTI supporters who had ransacked military and government facilities following Imran’s arrest in an alleged graft case.
According to Sharif, Imran’s trick of using proxies to threaten the Army Chief alleging an assassination attempt has been badly exposed. “The former PM (Imran) was desperately working to coerce his way back into power after failure in a methodically planned attack on the state symbols,” The PTI chief, the PM said, fails to realise that “the time of his politics of intimidation, violence and hatred is over”.
“Through such highly condemnable antics, he is only exposing himself, the core of which is defined by putting his personal interest (power grab) over everything else,” the PM said.
He reiterated that the people of Pakistan and the political parties strongly stood behind Army Chief Gen Munir and the armed forces, and they would thwart any attempt and conspiracy at undermining Pakistan Army’s prestige, honour and integrity.