Lahore: A year after his ouster as the prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan on Monday said that he was cautioned by the ruler of a Gulf nation last year that the then Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was conspiring to topple his government.
Last year in April, Khan was ousted as the prime minister of Pakistan and his government toppled through a no-confidence motion brought in Parliament by the opposition parties led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
On Sunday, Khan, who is the chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), issued a white paper on the one-year performance of the PML-N-led coalition and termed it the worst in the country’s history.
“Before the no-confidence motion against me was tabled in April last year, the ruler of a Gulf country told me that my Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa was conspiring against my government to get his extension (from the PML-N and its allies). Bajwa was a mastermind of this conspiracy,” Khan claimed.
He criticised Bajwa for destroying Pakistan merely for his extension which he could not get despite a promise by (prime minister) Shehbaz Sharif.
“Things have revealed later that the conspiracy to overthrow my government was not hatched by the US. Gen Bajwa hired former envoy to US Hussain Haqqani to launch propaganda that Gen Bajwa was pro-America and Imran Khan was anti-America,” Khan said.
Following his removal, Khan had initially blamed the US for playing a role in his government’s toppling.
However, later he held Gen. Bajwa responsible for the ‘conspiracy’ which resulted in his ouster.
Months before his retirement in November last year, Gen Bajwa had repeatedly said that he was not seeking another extension in service. He also made it clear that the Pakistan Army has decided to distance itself from the country’s politics.
While Khan did not precisely take any Gulf leader’s name, he last month said that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is still in contact with him.
Talking about the current status of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, Khan said that the PML-N-led government destroyed the economy, attacked free speech and media, and imposed restrictions through “unidentified people,” a reference to the powerful intelligence agencies.
He also talked about the ban on his speeches and media interviews.
Khan said that during its one-year rule, the PML-N-led coalition government also desecrated the fundamental rights of people by unleashing torture on PTI leaders and workers.
In his message during the release of the white paper, the cricketer-turned-politician said that his message to the “all-powerful Army chief Gen Asim Munir” and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif that Pakistan’s biggest political party (PTI) could not be crushed by “violence, torture, and harassment tactics”.
He said that today Pakistan is being run under a “London Plan” made by the powerful (the military establishment) with Nawaz Sharif.
