Imran Khan urges SC to monitor Sharif family's cases

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has urged the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan to monitor corruption cases involving the Sharif family, ARY News reported on Monday.

Addressing a lawyers’ convention in Peshawar, the former premier said that it was the responsibility of the judiciary and lawyers to uphold the rule and law in the country, or else the history would not forgive them.

Terming the Sharif family as the ‘Silicon Mafia’, Imran Khan said that these people would only frighten people to consolidate its rule and hamper protest, adding that this mafia could either purchase people or eliminate them.

He also pointed out an interview of an official of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), saying that a prosecutor namely Zulqarnain confessed that he was stopped from further investigating Sharif family’s cases. “I wonder who stopped him when I was in power,” he said.

Imran claimed that the Sharif family collected Rs16 billion in the name of servants. “Rs375 crore were transferred to the account of Malik Maqsood, a peon at the Ramzan Sugar Mills,” he said, adding that when Shehbaz and Hamza were about to be punished, they were made the chief executives.

Imran Khan praised the apex court for directly overseeing the corruption cases of Sharif family, reiterating that FIA investigators were removed by ‘corrupt mafia’ and some suffered heart attacks due to pressure.

Praising his government’s performance, Imran said that Pakistan performed much better in the last two years in the economic sector as compared to the past. “The country achieved record tax collection targets during PTI’s tenure,” he said.

Khan further criticized the incumbent government and blamed it for conspiring with the United States to oust him. He explained that Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu threatened the then Pakistani Ambassador against the PTI-led government.

He said that history has changed this time when people came out to protest when the PTI government was ousted instead of distributing sweets. He also demanded the Supreme Court to assure protection of the second phase of the long march.