Daily Times

MULTAN: Senior politician Javed Hashmi said on Monday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan had informed him that the parliament would be dissolved during the 2014 Islamabad sit-in.

Talking to reporters in Multan, Hashmi said that Imran had earlier said that after departure of Justice Tassaduq Jilani, the upcoming judges would dissolve the parliament.

“Imran told me that judges after Tassaduq Gilani will dissolve the parliament. He (Imran) said then Nawaz would resign too,” Hashmi said. He added that the PTI chief had said that elections would take place in September and his party would be able to form a government. “Imran Khan can contradict me under oath,” said Hashmi.

Hashmi alleged that PTI leaders Arif Alvi and Shireen Mazari had told him that Imran was ready to attack the parliament.

“They (PTI leaders) appeared quite concerned, they asked me to make Imran understand,” said the senior politician.

He further said that he had been asked to form a forward bloc in the PTI instead of resigning. Hashmi added that he had turned down the offer, saying that he wasn’t there to destroy Imran’s party.

Hashmi said that he was also the sports minister when Imran Khan had left the Pakistani team for playing for Kerry Packer World Series in 1977. “We kept requesting him not to sell Pakistan for Kerry Packer series, but he did not listen to us,” he said.

Hashmi claimed that he had told Imran Khan that the technocrat system would be the start of a martial law in Pakistan. “When I told Imran Khan to take back his statement on the technocrat system, only then did he retract his words,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, August 1^st , 2017.