SWABI: Former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser said here on Wednesday that the main purpose of the public meeting in Swabi was to pressure the federal government to release the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s founding chairman Imran Khan from jail.

Mr Qaiser along with other party leaders was talking to mediapersons at his residence in Marghuz area following a meeting.

He said the upcoming public meeting would be held at the rest area of the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway here on Saturday. Mr Qaiser also urged workers to make efforts for success of the gathering.

He said the gathering was meant to highlight the fact that the party’s mandate had been stolen in the last general elections and the government’s failure to restore the rule of law in the country.

Urges party workers to make the event successful

“All the cases against Imran Khan politically motivated,” Mr Qaiser said, adding, “We are political people and not militants.”

Qaiser rejected Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s remarks that PTI leaders strived to get Imran Khan out of the country, saying that the former prime minister would stay in the country unlike other parties’ leaders who moved out of the country after their release from jail in the past.

“Imran has made it clear several times that he won’t move out of the country, and would live and die with the people of Pakistan. The minister should avoid spreading rumours about the PTI’s founder.”

The MNA said that despite the time constraints party’s workers and leaders in Swabi had finalised all arrangements for the public gathering. He said party workers and leaders from across the country would participate in the meeting.

“We will not shun the struggle against the incumbent regime and for the welfare of people,” he said.

About the amendments in the Army Act to extend the tenure of the services chiefs from three years to five years and allowing the four-star generals to continue their service beyond 64 years of age, Mr Qaiser said the legislation was bulldozed through the parliament, and the required procedure and rules were not followed.

DEATH SENTENCE: A court in Chota Lahor tehsil on Wednesday awarded death sentence to a man for stabbing to death his two aunts three years ago.

Additional district and sessions judge-II Syed Ali Raza pronounced the verdict.

The convict, Haris Khan of Yar Hussain Kashmirabad area, was also slapped with a fine of Rs1.5 million and five-year additional imprisonment.

FIR of the occurrence was registered with the Yar Hussain police station on Sept 2, 2021.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2024