BHIMBER: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that his party will focus on devolution of power and across-the-board accountability if it is elected to power in the upcoming election of the Legislative Assembly of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a pubic rally in Bhimber on Thursday, Khan said that his party would give a system in Azad Kashmir where the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) would be independent. He criticised the government and asked this question: “Where did the Rs 5,000 billion loan go that the government took in three years?” Commenting on the core issue, the PTI chairman said that Kashmiris should be given the right to self-determination so that they could decide their future according to their wishes and aspirations. He said that time was ripe to change the destiny of the Kashmiris. Emphasising the importance of the local government system in Azad Kashmir, he said that people of the region had waken up and they would elect the PTI to power with a huge margin under the leadership of former Azad Kashmir prime minister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry.
Referring to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Khan said that he needed Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), to save his government. This showed the prime minister was in trouble, he said. The PTI chief said that change was not possible without participation of people. He said that how Sharif would bring others’ money back in the country when his own wealth was in foreign countries. “Leaders steal the wealth, illegally send it abroad and then lie in the assembly,” he said. Khan said that corruption had undermined Pakistan. “The rulers have mortgaged the people of the country to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange of heavy loans,” he said. He said that each Pakistani was under a debt of Rs 0.12 million; therefore, the government was increasing the gas and power tariff on the IMF orders. The PTI chairman said that corruption was eroding the country. Unless the disease of corruption is uprooted, he said, the country could not make progress. Strict accountability was required to eradicate this disease.
Khan said the JUI chief was bringing a bad name to religion by doing politics in the name of religion. “People know his character and how he sold his soul for diesel.” He said that Rehman was trying to save the people involved in corruption. He advised the JUI-F chief to change the name of his party, saying that he was disgracing Islam. Commenting on the Panamagate, Khan said that prime minister’s daughter Maryam Safdar had said that she had no offshore company or assets, but the nation knew the truth. He said that a London court gave a ruling against Sharif. He said that $2 billion of the nation were deposited in a Pakistani federal minister’s Swiss bank account.
