Interior minister says only GHQ can authorise army officials’ court marital n Warns legal action if Imran Khan fails to appear before court in Toshakhana case.

ISLAMABAD    -    Interior Minister Rana Sanaul­lah Khan on Wednesday said that an investigation was un­derway against former direc­tor general Inter-Service Intel­ligence (ISI) retired lieutenant general Faiz Hameed and de­tails would be made public after some evidence comes on record.

The interior minister at the same time avoided disclosing the names of the institutions that were assigned investiga­tion against a former power­ful head of the country’s pre­mier intelligence agency and his brother in an alleged case of misuse of power and having assets beyond known sources.

Addressing a press con­ference here, Rana Sanaull­lah only said that investiga­tion agencies were holding the probe against him. “I will inform you when some evi­dence will come on record,” he told reporters. It is premature to comment on the issue at the moment, he added.

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Responding a ques­tion about the demand of PML-N senior vice presi­dent Maryam Nawaz that retired lieutenant gener­al Faiz Hameed should be court-martialled; he said that the General Head­quarters (GHQ) of Paki­stan Army had the author­ity to conduct the trial of court-martial against any military officer. “The civil­ian authority has no pow­ers to conduct such a trial,” he said. He added that poli­ticians can only make a de­mand that the relevant au­thority should do so.

Talking about the reports of clashes of PTI workers with police in Lahore after imposition of Section 144 of Code of Criminal Proce­dure that prohibits con­gregation of four or more people at one place, the in­terior minister said that former prime minister Im­ran Khan chose the same place where the organisers of Aurat March had an­nounced to gather on the eve of International Wom­en’s Day.

He said that the caretak­er government in Punjab has imposed Section 144 on the reports of agencies. Ac­cording to my information, the Punjab government had asked PTI to share its route of planned election ral­ly and to give assurance to limit their activities to avoid any untoward incident. “But followers of Imran Khan don’t abide by rules and they always adopt a strange behaviour during such events,” he said. He also said that this forced the provin­cial government to take the worst step.

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Rana Sanaullah chided PTI chairman Khan by say­ing that on one hand, he was not appearing before courts on the pretext of his bullet injury and age fac­tors, but at the same time wanted to hold a rally on the eve of women’s march. He said that he should ap­pear in the courts in con­nection with Toshakhana and other cases.

He alleged that courts have given maximum relief to PTI chief and questions would be raised on the im­partiality of the judiciary if he was given more bene­fit. He said that the govern­ment respected the judicia­ry but some of its decisions were surprising for the government and referred to the interim bail given to Khan by Islamabad High Court (IHC) in Toshakha­na case. He said that Imran Khan was not ready to step back from his intentions of creating chaos and unrest in the country. He further said that the law should take its course to bring him to book if he did not appear before the court on March 13 in Toshakhana case.

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The minister claimed that ex-premier Khan would in­flict a heavy loss to the country if the people did not exclude him from poli­tics through power of vote. Replying to a question, he said that no one within the ‘system’ had stopped the government from arrest­ing Khan but the govern­ment did not want to do so in haste. Rana Sanaullah hoped that newly appoint­ed National Accountabili­ty Bureau (NAB) Chairman retired lieutenant general Nazir Ahmad would move forward the process of ac­countability keeping in view the merits of justice.