ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)’s senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry on Thursday rejected the inquiry commission proposed by the government to investigate the ‘foreign conspiracy’ against the then PTI government and claimed that only an ‘open hearing’ by a judicial commission would be acceptable to his party.

Speaking at a press conference at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad, the PTI leader said that no commission under the incumbent government would be acceptable to his party.

“We will only accept an independent commission under a free judiciary. Even that commission must hold open hearings so that people could know how the PTI government was toppled,” Mr Chaudhry said.

Mr Chaudhry further said that a US defence analyst had already revealed how and why Mr Khan’s govt had been brought down.

Fawad asks ECP to decide cases of PTI’s dissident lawmakers as per rules

He said the PML-N-led coalition government had stopped talks with Russia over procurement of oil and gas and now it was ending relations with China.

“Terrorist attacks have gone up by 24 per cent and Chinese nationals are being targeted. The fact is that we restored law and order and revived cricket in the country,” he said.

The PTI leader said the government was busy levelling allegations against Farah Khan, a close friend of Bushra Bibi, at press conferences inst­ead of registering cases against her.

“The PTI’s government is the only government in the country against which no case of corruption has been found despite the fact that now we are not in power. That is the reason why the government has been using the blasphemy law to put pressure on us.

“On the other hand, the current government’s two-thirds cabinet members have been facing charges of corruption, money laundering and holding assets beyond their means,” Mr Chaudhry claimed.

In reply to a question about handing over of military bases to the US, the PTI leader said the people of the country would never allow any such move.

“The US needs military bases and it conveyed its request to Imran Khan through a journalist, but we refused to provide bases and that is why our government was toppled through a foreign conspiracy,” he said.

Mr Chaudhry said the PTI would hold a public meeting in Mianwali on Friday (today) and six other such meetings would be held by May 20 as Mr Khan would announce a date for a march towards Islamabad in a few days.

The PTI leader urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide cases about dissident MNAs and MPAs within 30 days as per rules.

“There are 22 MNAs and 25 MPAs from Punjab and their 30 days are going to end on May 14,” he said.

Another PTI leader, Farrukh Habib, who was also present at Mr Chaudhry’s press conference, claimed that Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz had gone to Qatar on a private visit and asked him to bring his employee Maqsood Chaprasi along with him who was facing charges of corruption of Rs4 billion.

Meanwhile, former minister for planning and development Asad Umar claimed that due to political instability, foreign reserves of the country had fallen by $6 billion over the last two months.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2022