The Awami Muslim League (AML) leader and former interior minister Sheikh Rashid said on Thursday that people should not blame the Pakistan Army for the ouster of former prime minister Imran Khan from the government.
The AML chief said while talking to a private news channel that the army is the most prestigious and sensitive institution of the country. He said Imran Khan has emerged as the most prominent leader of the country despite all odds.
Sheikh Rashid expressed fears of a potential civil war leading to bloodshed in the upcoming long march of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
On April 30, PTI Chairman Imran announced that his party would hold a long march to Islamabad in the last week of May against an “imported government” that was imposed on the country in cahoots with foreign powers. The former interior minister warned that the long march could be frightening, alarming and serious. He warned that if the situation worsens, Imran Khan will not be able to stop it. He said people have now made it a matter of national honour and self-determination.
He said that the current government was stuck in a hard place as it was brought into power with only a majority of two votes in its favour.
“If anyone from the MQM, BAP or any other group disassociates itself with this government, then it would end. It is a slave government that is lying on the floor. It will do as it is told,” he said.
He said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is a ‘boot licker’. “Shehbaz in [the] 90s used to polish boots and is compromised. He has no prestige and value. I urge the whole nation to prepare for general elections,” he said. Talking about his nephew, Rashid Shafiq, who was sent on a two-day physical remand by the district court in Attock on May 2, the former interior minister said that no one could prove that Shafiq was at the location at the time when the slogans were raised against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership in Saudi Arabia. Rashid Shafiq was taken into custody on Sunday at the Islamabad Airport when an FIR was lodged against him and PTI leaders in Faisalabad over the recent incident of pilgrims surrounding PM Shehbaz’s delegation in Masjid-e-Nabwi and shouting slogans.