LONDON, Sept 28: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan, who is here on a brief visit, has asked Pakistani students in the UK to become politically active to play a role for the future of the country.

Mr Khan, who was speaking at an Iftar reception hosted for him by the Kings College Pakistan Student Society and his party’s UK chapter, said the educated youth could liberate Pakistan from what he called the forces of status quo.

He spoke at length about the current situation in Pakistan, the plight of the common man groaning under rising prices, threat to people’s life and property from the suicide bomber and the continued violation of the rule of law by the ruling elite.

Describing Asif Ali Zardari as an NRO president “who has been charged with corruption by three previous governments,” Mr Khan accused the PPP co-chairman of violating all democratic norms by continuing to retain the dictatorial powers that Gen (retd) Musharraf had wielded.

He also criticised the government for not restoring Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and said Mr Zardari had blocked the restoration because he feared the CJ would reopen the NRO case.

He said that without the restoration of the Chief Justice Pakistan could not be put on the path to achieving the goal of independent judiciary.

Answering a question about his case against the MQM, Mr Khan said that the investigation by the British authorities were very much in progress.

He also spoke about MQM’s not-so-savoury approach to politics and joked about how its leader led his party from the safe distance of thousands of miles.

Mr Khan also discussed in some detail the ‘war of terror’ and its impact on civilians living in tribal areas.

He questioned the motives of the war and said that the current strategy was failing miserably. also said that if Pakistan did not change its policy on the so-called war on terror it might end up like Cambodia which was bombed by the US to almost the stone age on the suspicion that it was providing sanctuary to Vietcong and allowing them to cross over from its border into South Vietnam to attack the US troops.