HYDERABAD/MIRPURKHAS: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan rejected on Friday the tax amnesty scheme announced by the government and said that after coming to power his party would investigate those who would benefit from it.

Speaking to journalists at the residence of Javed Junejo, a prominent citizen of Hyderabad, the PTI chief called for setting up of caretaker governments both at the Centre and in the provinces that were “truly neutral” in character.

Mr Khan criticised Nawaz Sharif and said his party would hold a mammoth public meeting in Lahore on April 29 to rally against the PML-N government. “A tsunami of people will gather on April 29 to say they are fed up with the mafia, they are against corruption and they are with the judiciary.”

He said that as long as the judiciary was giving verdicts against other leaders like Yousuf Raza Gilani the Sharifs were happy, but when Panamagate revealed their own corruption they began threatening the judges and began speaking against the military.

Says PTI will hold massive public meeting in Lahore on 29th

“Even if today the judiciary saves them they will praise it,” he said.

Turning to the tax amnesty scheme, he said that “$10 billion is laundered [and sent] to foreign countries every year while the nation remains mired in debt. Shahbaz Sharif, Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and Khawaja Asif all are involved in it”.

After coming to power, he said, a PTI government would reveal the secrets of the LNG contract.

Mr Khan was of the opinion that the amnesty scheme sent a message to the honest taxpayers that they were in fact fools. “They also should have looted the nation’s wealth only to avail such schemes later to whiten their black money.”

In response to a question, the PTI chairman said his party wanted caretaker set-ups as mandated in the Constitution. “We will make sure that neutral caretaker set-ups are appointed... and there is no wheeling, dealing as was seen in the last polls.”

He said he was encouraged to see the people’s response during his ongoing visit to Sindh. This time people would not get carried away by PPP’s slogan of “roti, kapra aur makan [bread, cloth and house]”.

He condemned the recent bombing in the Afghan province of Kunduz and likened it to the air strike on a seminary in Damadola in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where dozens of seminary students were killed in 2006.

“The US is creating difficulties not only for themselves but for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he added.

Later in the day, the PTI chairman addressed party workers in various parts of the city, including Latifabad, Paretabad and Nasim Nagar, before leaving for Kotri. He was accompanied, among others, by Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Dr Arif Alvi and Haleem Adil Shaikh.

Speaking to people gathered at a PTI camp in Mirpurkhas on Thursday night, Mr Khan alleged that Mr Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur were minting money and no development work could be seen on the ground.

The PPP leaders, he said, had not only destroyed the institutions but also damaged the local economy. “Such leaders cannot be expected to restore the destroyed institutions to their previous state.”

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2018