Pakistan purge complete; Imran Khan jailed ahead of elections
Photo credit Twitter @HamzaAzhrSalam
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 5: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s appeal for protests fell on deaf ears, as he with ease bundled into a police van on way to a jail in Islamabad after a court convicted in the Toshakhana case. With three years of jail term and disqualification for five years, Khan’s participation in the national elections is now ruled out to mark the purge scripted by the Pakistani Army heads now complete.
The judgment of the Toshakhana verdict underlined that “Imran Khan has been found guilty of corrupt practices by hiding the benefits he accrued from national exchequer willfully and intentionally. His dishonesty has been established beyond doubt.”
Rangers reportedly broke widow glasses to break into the Zaman House of Khan, an ex-cricketer who led Pakistan to ICC World Cup victory in 1993. Khan is said to be headed to Attock jail. In a few months, Pakistan is slated to go for the national elections, with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief’s rehabilitation with the active aide of the top brass of the Army now being certain.
While the local journalists said that there had been no incidents of protests in the wake of the arrest of Khan, the local media shared visuals of the people sharing sweets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a mark of celebrations. The final crackdown against Khan came after meticulous planning by the Pakistani Army top brass, which first allegedly scripted the May 9 violence to launch an unprecedented purge of the political leadership of the Khan-head PTI, leading to exodus of the popular faces. The trials of the political leaders and workers in the military courts seemingly destroyed the political spine of the PTI.
Ravinder Kumar Kaushik, a Pakistan observer, in his book recently claimed that Khan’s ouster was first set in the motion by Major General (Retd.) Ijaz Ahmed, father-in-law of the former Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa.
“They (Army) will do everything they can to keep Imran Khan out of the election because he’d win by a huge margin. But if there is one thing Pakistanis know it is that Imran is a good man, honest & uninterested in the material trappings of power,” tweeted Zac Goldsmith, a former UK minister for foreign office.
What Goldsmith is suggesting has been popularly held by the intelligentsia in Pakistan that the middle class of the Islamic nation is largely with Khan, who has been able to raise the banner of rebellion against the ruling elite consisting of the Army, businessmen and Punjab-based politicians.
About The Author
