Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s founding chairman and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday hinted at launching a street agitation to protest what he called “political persecution” of party workers and instructed his outfit’s leadership and supporters to wait for his call.
In a message to his party workers, the 71-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician claimed that during the “past two darkest years in Pakistan’s history, PTI’s political persecution was carried on with complete impunity”.
“My message for my nation: we must now be ready to practically struggle against this fascist mafia. I instruct all of you— my central party leadership, central, provincial and local party organisation, members, workers, supporters and the common man to wait for my street agitation call,” Khan said in his message posted on his account on X.
Khan is currently imprisoned in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail as he serves several sentences.
Khan said his party workers “were subjected to the prohibited war tool of collective punishment - our houses trespassed, our people killed and tortured, our businesses destroyed, even the elderly and children were not spared”.
“For the sake of Pakistan, we have been very patient so far. But ENOUGH IS ENOUGH NOW!!” he said.
He said that the “heinous attack” on Rauf Hassan is “very instigating and further demonstrates that the powerful are unwilling to accept dissent, preferring to resort to cowardly tactics rather than addressing the underlying problems”.
Hasan, the party’s information secretary, was allegedly attacked by a group of four transgender persons in the parking lot of a private news channel’s office in the capital.
A message posted on Khan’s account on X said, “The entire nation knows who is orchestrating these attacks on our leadership. It’s the same powers that lurk in the shadows and use proxies to harass & threaten judges and make a mockery of elections by brazenly tampering with results.
“Let us make it very clear that the PTI will not be deterred by such dirty tactics & violence which only serve to expose the perpetrators before the nation.”
