LAHORE: As Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) long march resumed after a week from Wazirabad on Thursday, party Chairman Imran Khan addressed the participants from his Zaman Park residence here through a video link, reiterating his accusation that a senior army officer was behind his attempted assassination.

He said “army officer Maj Gen Faisal Naseer masterminded and monitored my assassination plan”, and demanded the chief justice of Pakistan investigate and uphold justice to ensure that the country did not become a banana republic.

Mr Khan urged the country’s top judge to investigate how a former prime minister could not get a first information report (FIR) registered wherein he had accused an army officer among the three suspects behind the plot to kill him.

Asking whether Maj Gen Naseer was above the law, he said the chief of the military’s media wing had termed his claims an insult to the institution of the armed forces.

“This institution will be insulted when it will not take action against a suspect, or consider itself above the law of the land,” he remarked.

“If an ex-PM is not able to get an FIR registered as per his information then one can imagine what will happen to a common man in Pakistan.”

PTI resumes its long march from Wazirabad after one week

He further alleged that since Maj Gen Naseer and Inter-Services Intelligence Islamabad Sector Comm­ander Brig Faheem were posted in Islamabad, “they unleashed torture on us as if we were terrorists”.

“If such people will rem­ain here, terrorism will not be controlled, but will grow.”

The former premier also urged the Sup­reme Court chief justice to investigate the humiliation of Senator Azam Swati and the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya.

Referring to the purported videos showing the torture on Mr Sharif, Mr Khan asked how those videos got to a TV anchor when the post-mortem report had yet to reach the mother of the slain journalist. He questioned who was upset with the investigative reporting of Arshad Sharif and nurturing hatred against him that led to his torture before killing.

“Only the Supreme Court can investigate, as the nation has lost faith in the credibility of investigating agencies,” he claimed, and wondered that the PTI was a coalition partner in the Punjab government, but its police were being “controlled from somewhere else”.

Asking when the justice system will protect the common people, Mr Khan stressed this was a matter of the country’s future that now rested in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Earlier, he once again explained his allegations that the plan for his assassination, which was executed in Wazirabad, had been hatched in September and that he had exposed it in two public meetings.

He claimed the forensic report of the container that was fired upon in Wazirabad suggested there were two shooters instead of the one captured from the crime scene. Certain army officers, besides the prime minister and interior minister, had planned to give his murder attempt the colour of religious fanaticism, but, he said: “Man proposes, God disposes.”

Now, the PTI chief said, the party’s long march would not stop and continue getting aggressive to ensure rule of law and that every powerful person was held accountable for their wrongdoings.

He also said he would join the march in Rawalpindi and welcome people from across the country to head to Islamabad, adding: “Nations struggle and fight to win their independence.”

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2022