Islamabad, 23 Jan. 2021 (Media Reports)

In a lengthy and fiery telephonic question and answer session with the general public live on air during a program called ‘Aap Ka Wazir-e-Azam, Aap Kay Saath’ (Your Prime Minister ‘ With You’, on Sunday 23rd January 2022, he warned that ‘if ousted (from power) will be more dangerous’. “Till now, I just quietly watch this show from my office, but if I come out on streets you won’t find a place to hide.” It was not clear referring towards whom if he is ousted from power as far as main stream opposition is concerned, largest opposition party Pakistan Muslim League (N) leadership has been continuously facing prisons without any charges proved on them in the courts by Imran Khan led Political Party Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf is in power since over three years August 2018.

His advisor on accountability and Interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar has been a number of times blasted by the Pakistani courts for not producing any documentary evidences on government charges against political opponents and using Accountability Bureau for political revenges. Shahzad Akbar is also charged on mis-representation against Sharifs properties in UK and government of Pakistan was fined a couple of times by a London Courts to pay millions of dollars in fine including to the asset-recovery firm Broadsheet LLC in August 2021.

After hearing the arguments from both sides, the court ordered NAB and the Pakistan government to pay $1,222,037 and GBP110 as well as the claimant’s application cost of GBP26,296 to NAB’s solicitors until 4.30pm on August 10. It said NAB’s solicitors Allen and Overy shall pay all sums received from the government of Pakistan to Broadsheet LLC’s solicitors Crowell and Moring by 4.30pm on August 13.

A London High Court has ordered the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Pakistan government to pay a sum of 1.2 million dollars to asset-recovery firm Broadsheet LLC by next week.

After hearing the arguments from both sides, the court ordered NAB and the Pakistan government to pay $1,222,037 and GBP110 as well as the claimant’s application cost of GBP26,296 to NAB’s solicitors until 4.30pm on August 10. It said NAB’s solicitors Allen and Overy shall pay all sums received from the government of Pakistan to Broadsheet LLC’s solicitors Crowell and Moring by 4.30pm on August 13.

Imran Khan forcefully took on the Sharif family on Sunday by declaring that he considered the Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif a ‘criminal’ and ‘the culprit of the nation’ and not the opposition leader and that is why he avoids meeting him.

In a lengthy and fiery telephonic question and answer session with the general public live on air during a programme called “Aap Ka Wazir-e-Azam, Aap Kay Saath”, the prime minister blasted the Sharif family over corruption cases and revealed that he refuses to shake hands with Shehbaz on the pretext that it would normalise corruption as the latter was facing corruption cases worth billions of rupees.

However, the opposition parties and independent analysts took exception to the premier’s stance and raised several questions over his approach towards the opposition leader, whom the premier has long been avoiding to meet and even tactfully avoided following the Murree tragedy.

The PML-N and the PPP – the two main opposition parties – on Sunday lambasted Prime Minister Imran Khan shortly after his public interaction through a TV show ended, accusing him of shifting the blame for his “failure” to rein in the high prices of essential goods to a global phenomenon. PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz took to Twitter to say that the premier sounded like a man who had conceded defeat.

She called the premier a ‘conspirator” and a victim of his own wrongdoings’

“Every word that Imran Khan uttered today reeks of failure, dashed hopes and no faith in his or PTI’s future. This was inevitable, man,” she wrote. “You are history & the history that we will be taught as a lesson of caution to those who rely more on conspiracy & plotting than people’s power.”

She maintained that PM Imran sounded like a person who had not only been defeated but also accepted it. “[Four] years into the govt & he is still only whining.”

“No one can arbitrarily decide who is a criminal and who is not,” the president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said. “We have courts for this purpose.”

Calling it an “unstatesmanlike statement”, the PILDAT president said that as long as someone is elected, has not been disqualified by a court of law, and holds a position such as the leader of the opposition, “PM is duty bound to deal with him, hold consultations and try to reach a consensus where possible”.

Emphasising that one should respect the Constitution and democratic traditions and recognise the importance of engaging with the opposition, Mehboob raised the question that if “PM considers it wrong to engage with opposition leader then how does it become right for his second-in-command Shah Mahmood Qureshi to invite the leader of opposition for talks on South Punjab province?”

While giving another example, Mehboob recalled that even PM Imran had to write a letter to the leader of the opposition for consultation on the appointment of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) members but he only refused to meet him face to face. “This is not befitting a PM to take such positions,” he lamented.

After all, Mehboob said, PM Imran has often expressed willingness to engage with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite outrageous policies and actions of the neighbouring country’s leader, questioning “why can’t he engage with his political opponents within his own country”.