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.
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.
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.
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.