Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Saturday slammed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and said that the ex-prime minister must be careful about what he says.

“Imran must realize every time his wife has a dream he cannot just come on tv & make accusations about people. Her dreams won’t stand up in court,” the minister said in a series of tweets.

Bilawal claimed that Khan’s allegations had increased the threat to him and his family, especially given their history. “After terrorist outfits called [me] and my party out by name in direct threats, Imran has now made false accusations against my father former president [Asif Zardari],” he said. “These statements increase threats to my father, my family & my part[y]. We take them seriously given our history,” the foreign minister said.

Terming the accusations of the PTI chief “dangerous,” he said that PPP was exploring legal responses to Khan’s most recent accusations. “We are exploring legal response to Imran latest defamatory and dangerous accusations. In the past, he threatened my father that he was ‘in the crosshairs of his gun’.” “He & his associates’ history as both sympathizers & facilitators of terrorists are well documented,” the foreign minister said. Reiterating his stance that Khan was unduly sympathetic to terrorists and extremists, Bilawal added: “When in power, he released terrorists and arrested democrats, he handed over Pakhtunkhwa to terrorist organisation, his party funds terrorist groups to this day. All of this will be taken into account if any attack were to take place against myself, my father, or my party.”

Bilawal further asserted: “His [Khan’s] latest accusation that my family has any association to a terrorist organization or that we would employ them to cause him harm not only defies logic but exposes us all to an increased threat. “PPP will challenge him. We cannot let populist fiction dominate our discourse, poison our politics & damage our democracy. We will not tolerate being victims of terrorist & put up with propaganda from their political frontmen.”

Holding a news conference from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore via a video link yesterday, the former prime minister termed the alleged conspiracy ‘Plan-C’ for which he accused Zardari of paying money to a terrorist outfit to carry out the assassination attempt on his life.

“Now they have made a Plan C, and Asif Zardari is behind this. He has loads of corruption money, which he loots from the Sindh government and spends on winning elections. He [Zardari] has given money to a terrorist outfit and people from powerful agencies are facilitating him,” Imran alleged. “This has been decided on three fronts and they will act soon,” he added. “I am telling you this because if something happens to me the nation should know the people, who were behind this, so that the nation never forgives them,” he said.