ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Tuesday that Imran Khan would be tried in a military court as the former prime minister was the “crafter” of the May 9 events, which saw the military and the state killed by his party workers following his arrest. Establishments were attacked. In case of corruption. On the Dawn News show, Sanaullah accused the 70-year-old head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of personally planning attacks on military installations before his arrest.
The minister said that there was also evidence to prove the claim. Asked if Khan would be prosecuted in a military court, he said: “Absolutely, why shouldn’t it? The program he created and then executed to target military installations, I think it’s absolutely a matter.” Military court.” The minister accused Khan of personally organizing the May 9 riots.
He said, “His supporters raised a slogan that ‘Imran Khan is our red line’, and the planning and preparation were done at the initiative and instigation of Imran Khan. He did all this. He is the mastermind of all this discord.” “(The evidence) is documented, it’s in the tweets and their messages,” he said.
Asked how Khan was able to communicate with his party leaders even from jail, the minister replied: “All this (planning) was decided before he (went to jail) who would do what and Where will he do. And when he is arrested. What will be the strategy and duties’. It was all decided. The minister’s remarks came a day after Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said that no decision has been taken yet on Khan’s trial under the stringent military law. However, he added that he cannot “rule out” any such possibility.
“I do not rule out the possibility that he was the planner and knew everything (about May 9),” Asif said. Khan has denied his involvement in the violence, saying he was in jail when the mayhem broke out. He says that the ruling establishment is planning to keep him in jail for 10 years for treason. Violent protests broke out in Islamabad on 9 May following Khan’s arrest by paramilitary Rangers. His party workers vandalized more than 20 military establishments and government buildings, including the Lahore Corps Commander House, the Mianwali Airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad. The Army Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time. Khan was later released on bail.
The violence drew a strong response from the government and the military, with a pledge to act against the guilty, which continued to crack down on those involved. Law enforcement agencies have arrested over 10,000 workers of Khan’s Pakistan Party across Pakistan, of whom 4,000 are from Punjab.
Police put the death toll in the violent clashes at 10, while Khan’s party claimed 40 of its workers were killed in firing by security personnel. The Punjab Police had earlier claimed, citing a geo-fencing report, that Khan and his close aides had allegedly coordinated efforts to storm the Lahore Corps Commander’s residence and other buildings.
Punjab’s Inspector General of Police Dr Usman Anwar, when contacted by Dawn, confirmed the geo-fencing records and the alleged use of Khan’s residence in Lahore to plan the attack on Jinnah House. A senior official, requesting anonymity, had told the paper that an analysis of the geo-fencing records had made several significant revelations: 154 calls were made. He had said that the PTI chairman was the ‘prime suspect’ who allegedly planned the attack on the Corps Commander’s house.
The official had said that the call records showed that all the phone calls were made on May 8 and May 9, ‘the day of Khan’s arrest’, to prepare the workers to attack the building. Sanaullah said on Friday that 19 suspects in Punjab and 14 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been handed over to the army. On Monday, an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi directed the superintendent of Adiala Jail to hand over eight suspects to the military for trial.