By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan asked his party Pakistan Tareek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters to assemble in Rawalpindi on November 26 in the last leg of his campaign for snap elections.
“This is a long campaign to win real freedom for this nation,” Khan said on Saturday while speaking to PTI workers via video message. “You all have to reach Rawalpindi on November 26 between 1pm to 2pm.”
“I’ll meet you there,” he assured supporters. “I’ll be giving you the next plan of action there.”
PTI’s protest, called the “real freedom movement,” is a 270-kilometer (168-mile) march from the city of Lahore. A slow-moving convoy of his party supporters — in vehicles and on foot — took to the streets on October 28, making multiple stops en route, before a suspension after Khan survived an assassination attempt.
The PTI chief suffered multiple bullet injuries in his legs when a gun-wielding man opened fire on his protest convoy near Gujranwala on November 3. The man suspected of firing shots at the rally was detained and later a leaked video showing the purported shooter confessing to an attempt on the life of Khan surfaced.
However, Khan named three individuals — Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior minister Rana Sanaullah and an army official Major-General Faisal Nasser — for the assassination plot and demanded their resignations.
Ousted from the office of prime minister via a parliamentary vote in April, Khan has, since, refused to recognize the coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and accuses it of conspiring with the military establishment and the US for his removal.
Khan has demanded snap elections across the country, which Sharif and his coalition government have repeatedly rejected.
“We’ll demand one thing and that is free and fair elections,” he said, promising that his movement will continue till “genuine freedom” is not achieved.
“We want a sovereign country where the nation makes its own decisions independently,” Khan said. He questioned the role of the powerful military establishment for allegedly imposing a government of what he called a “cabal of crooks.”
“I want to ask the establishment, what happened during the three-and-a-half years of my rule that they [the current rulers] became eligible to be imposed on us,” he asked.
“Tell me of a single benefit that they have brought to Pakistan in the last seven months,” he said, adding that all economic indicators, including industrial and agricultural growth, were positive during his tenure.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
