Tag: PTI government

  • Army needs to distance itself from PTI, says retired general

    Army needs to distance itself from PTI, says retired general

    Defence analyst Lt Gen (r) Ghulam Mustafa has urged the Pakistan Army to distance itself from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in order to kill the impression that the ruling party has the support of the military.

    In a TV show, the analyst said the impression that the army has gotten PTI’s back needs to be defused as it is damaging the reputation of the state institution.

    Mustafa said the opposition, however, was being unfair for claiming that the army was supporting the ruling PTI. He said the military stood by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in 2014 during the protests led by Imran Khan, but nobody accused it of “supporting the Nawaz-led government”.

    He said the army chief needed to take measures to take his force out of the tug of war between the political parties, as the current situation was rapidly heading towards disaster.

    The defence analyst’s comments came in the wake of countrywide protests by the joint opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement.

    During its first rally in Gujranwala on Oct 18, former prime minister and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif hit out at the security establishment for ousting his government and installing Imran Khan in power. This was the first time that the opposition named a sitting army chief for meddling in the elections.

    Nawaz addressed the crowd via video link from London. “Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, you packed up our government, which was working well, and put the nation and the country at the alter of your wishes,” the former PM added.

  • Will travel to UK myself if needed to bring Nawaz back: Imran

    Will travel to UK myself if needed to bring Nawaz back: Imran

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has said that he would himself travel to the United Kingdom (UK) if that is what’s needed to bring former premier Nawaz Sharif back to Pakistan to face the corruption charges against him.

    Corruption convict Nawaz, who was last year granted bail and the permission to travel abroad for medical treatment, has been in London for almost a year now. He has time and again been accused by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of faking health issues to flee the country and avoid accountability.

    “I will travel to [the] UK and bring him [Nawaz] back myself if that is what’s needed,” the premier reportedly said in an interview that will air on ARY News tonight at 7 pm.

    The statement comes after Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz said that the deposed PM will be in a Pakistan jail by January 15.

    Addressing the media, the federal minister maintained that everything was being done to stop the legal process behind the arrest of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo. However, he added that the federal government was doing all in its power to bring Nawaz back.

    Faraz said that PM Imran would not leave Nawaz off the hook, and that the government was building diplomatic pressure for the PML-N supreme leader’s return.

  • PM likely to appoint brother of Nawaz’s blue-eyed Fawad Hasan Fawad as new special assistant

    PM likely to appoint brother of Nawaz’s blue-eyed Fawad Hasan Fawad as new special assistant

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan is likely to appoint the brother of former PM Nawaz Sharif’s blue-eyed Fawad Hasan Fawad as his new special assistant on information and broadcasting, ARY News reported.

    According to reports, Raoof Hasan will be replacing former Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) director general (DG) Lt Gen (r) Asim Bajwa, who stepped down as the premier’s media aide earlier this month.

    Interestingly, Raoof is the brother of former civil servant Fawad who served in BPS-22 grade as the principal secretary to two PMs, namely Nawaz Sharif and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

    The former bureaucrat was accused of corruption and misuse of authority by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the Ashiana Housing scam, which led to his arrest in July 2018.

    He was accused of directing the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) management to cancel the contract of Ashiana Iqbal without any inquiry. In February 2019, the Lahore High Court (LHC) had granted Fawad bail but denied the same in another NAB case pertaining to assets beyond means.

    Later, in January 2020, Fawad was set free on the grounds that no illegitimate asset belonging to him had been unearthed by the anti-graft watchdog, no charge had been framed and that there was no nexus between him and any asset, however, he had been arrested at the inquiry stage.

    Fawad was also one of the first to be nabbed as part of the Imran-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s accountability drive.

    Raoof, on the other hand, is the founder and chief executive of the Regional Peace Institute.

  • Saudi Arabia backstabbing Pakistan at FATF?

    Saudi Arabia backstabbing Pakistan at FATF?

    Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri has rejected “false media reports” regarding Saudi Arabia’s role in the assessment of Pakistan’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) action plan.

    According to a press release, FO categorically rejected the story circulating on a segment of the media as false and baseless.

    Earlier in the day, Azhar Mashwani, Punjab chief minister’s focal person for digital media, tweeted that reports of Saudi Arabia voting against Pakistan at FATF were fake and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would issue a statement on this.

    “Pakistan and Saudi Arabia enjoy strong fraternal ties and the two countries have always cooperated with each other on all matters of bilateral, regional and international importance,” said the statement by the FO spokesperson.

    “Pakistan greatly values its relations with the brotherly Saudi Arabia and firmly rejects such malicious propaganda.”

    The statements come after renowned journalist, Sabir Shakir, claimed that Saudi Arabia had voted against Pakistan in the virtual plenary of the FATF.

    He had asserted that Saudi Arabia lobbied to woo the support of other Muslim countries including Turkey to move Pakistan into the blacklist of the global financial watchdog.

    FATF:

    According to Dawn, a virtual meeting of the FATF, from October 21-23, will decide if Pakistan should be excluded from its ‘grey list’, based on a review of Islamabad’s performance to meet global commitments and standards on fight against money laundering and terror financing (ML&TF).

    The FATF plenary was earlier scheduled in June but Islamabad got an unexpected breather after the global watchdog against financial crimes temporarily postponed all mutual evaluations and follow-up deadlines in the wake of grave health risk following COVID-19 pandemic. The Paris-based agency also put a general pause in the review process, thus giving additional four months to Pakistan to meet the requirements.

    The plenary had formally placed Pakistan in the grey list in June 2018 due to “strategic deficiencies” in anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) after a push from India supported by the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and some European countries.

    The FATF will examine if the country had demonstrated remedial actions and sanctions applied in cases of AML/CFT violations, relating to terrorist financing (TF) risk management and TFS (terror financing sanctions) obligations.

    The FATF will also judge if competent authorities were cooperating and taking action to identify and taking enforcement action against illegal money or value transfer services (MVTS) and had proven implementation of cross-border currency and bearer negotiable instruments (BNI) controls at all ports of entry, including applying effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions.

  • ‘Lahore CCPO sent home on forced leave’

    ‘Lahore CCPO sent home on forced leave’

    Journalist Adeel Raja on Wednesday claimed that the new chief of Lahore police, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Umar Sheikh, who has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons since his appointment last month, has been sent home on forced leave.

    While The Current’s sources corroborate the journalist’s claim as they say that the Lahore top cop was sent home after Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan expressed displeasure over a viral audio clip in which the CCPO purportedly hurled abuses at a woman, a leave application by Sheikh suggests otherwise.

    READ: Bright cop resigns after CCPO Lahore abuses him for speaking English

    “It is submitted that I have to look after my ailing daughter admitted to hospital. Please allow me three days [of] casual leave from 21.10.2020 to 23.10.2020,” read the application, a copy of which is available with The Current.

    Sheikh further stated that during his leave, Lahore’s Operations Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Muhammad Ashfaq Khan will look after the charge of the post of CCPO in addition to his own duties.

    This was also endorsed by Punjab chief minister’s spokesperson in a tweet.

    Azhar Mashwani, while responding to Raja, claimed that CCPO will back after tending to his ailing daughter.

  • VIDEO: PM mocks Khawaja Asif; claims he called Gen Bajwa crying, seeking help to win election

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has mocked Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart Khawaja Asif, claiming that the latter called Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on election night in 2018, crying while fearing defeat, and seeking his help to win from the NA-73 constituency of Sialkot.

    “There’s a prominent rangbaaz [charlatan] from Sialkot who thinks highly of himself… makes tall claims… but it was revealed that on election night he called Gen Bajwa at 8 pm, weeping and seeking his help to win the election,” the premier said during an animated address to a Tiger Force convention in Islamabad.

    Calling him “Rangbaaz Khawaja”, PM Imran quoted Asif as appealing to the army chief that he would be destroyed if Gen Bajwa didn’t help him win the election against Usman Dar of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

    WATCH VIDEO:

    In the 2018 general election, Asif had secured 116,957 votes while Dar had received 115,464 votes from the NA-73 constituency.

    However, Dar had requested a re-count in the constituency following the result but Asif had retained his seat.

    The vote recount was completed in NA-73 with Asif receiving 45 more votes than before. The vote count of PTI’s Muhammad Dar, who had requested the re-tally in the constituency, increased by 132 but he still remained behind the PML-N leader. 

    Dar, who is the current special adviser to the PM on youth affairs, had later also challenged Asif’s victory, but to no avail.

  • ‘Rangers kidnapped Sindh IG at 4 am to get Capt (r) Safdar arrested’

    Senior journalist and analyst Hamid Mir has claimed the Sindh government informed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Muhammad Zubair that the provincial police chief had been “kidnapped by rangers at 4 am and forced to issue the orders for the arrest of Maryam Nawaz’s husband, Captain (r) Safdar”.

    Earlier in the day, Karachi police arrested Capt (r) Safdar for violating the sanctity of Jinnah Mausoleum by raising slogans at the grave of the founder of Pakistan. The development was shared by his wife and PML-N vice president, Maryam, who tweeted that police broke into her room to arrest Capt (r) Safdar.

    “Unfortunate incident. Sindh Govt informed PML-N leader Muhammad Zubair that IG [insector general] Sindh was kidnapped by Rangers at 4 in the morning he was brought in sector commander’s office where addnl IG was already present and were forced to issue the orders for the arrest of Cpt Rtd Safdar [sic],” Mir claimed in a tweet.

    It was, however, rejected by another senior journalist, who said the IG was “fully onboard with the arrest”.

    Maintaining that internal rifts were marring the affairs of the joint opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Kamran Khan quoted sources as saying that all claims regarding the IG’s arrest were not true.

    The tweets come as condemnations pour in against Safdar’s arrest that is being termed “inappropriate” while some, on the other hand, laud the authorities for the same.

    People had earlier also been criticising the Sindh government of joint opposition’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for backstabbing the PML-N a day after the mammoth anti-government rally of the PDM in Karachi.

  • Info minister Shibli Faraz shares ‘father’s poetry’, is told it is not Ahmad Faraz but Ghalib’s ghazal

    Info minister Shibli Faraz shares ‘father’s poetry’, is told it is not Ahmad Faraz but Ghalib’s ghazal

    In a rather embarrassing development, Federal Minister for Information Shibli Faraz on Friday had to delete a tweet criticising the opposition after he was told that the poetry he had shared as that of his father, Ahmad Faraz, was actually a ghazal by Mirza Ghalib.

    “Jiski bahaar yeh ho uski khizaa naa pooch [don’t ask about the autumn of whose spring is this],” the minister said in the deleted tweet aimed at mocking the joint opposition for what the government called was “an empty stadium” in Gujranwala during the maiden public gathering of the opposition parties’ anti-government campaign.

    The tweet was deleted after journalist and Geo News Managing Director Azhar Abbas told him that the phrase the minister had attributed to his father and late poet Ahmad Faraz was actually from a ghazal by classical Urdu poet from the 19th Century, Mirza Ghalib.

    “I think it’s Ghalib’s not Ahmad Faraz’s,” Abbas tweeted.

    Shibli Faraz, who is serving as the federal minister for information and broadcasting since April 28, 2020, is a member of the Senate from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) since 2015. He is the son of the late renowned poet Ahmad Faraz, who was displaced by dictators for also being a vocal critic of military rule.

  • Two govt-controlled depts spied on Jahangir Tareen, monitored his family, his businesses?

    Two govt-controlled depts spied on Jahangir Tareen, monitored his family, his businesses?

    Former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen was reportedly spied on by two government-controlled departments — neither linked to any defence organisation or the armed forces — after being tasked by his own party to monitor his activities and businesses as well as those of his family.

    While Geo, citing sources, has reported that the departments monitored the same over several weeks, the claims have been categorically denied by the government.  

    Tareen’s residences in Islamabad and Lodhran were allegedly bugged, as were his sugar mills and other business interests. His activities, including meetings with politicians, businessmen and friends, were monitored and phone calls taped, the report said, adding that phone calls of all the members of his family were also allegedly recorded.

    Three weeks ago, a team from the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) had raided the head office of Tareen’s sugar mill and seized office records. It is not clear whether the raid was linked to the bugging operation or not.

    Advisor to the Prime Minister (PM) on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar has, however, rejected the allegations, describing them as “fiction”.

    He said that the allegation that Tareen and his family were spied on was “news” for him. “All concerns of those who were subject of the Sugar Commission inquiry [including Tareen] were raised by them in multiple cases before various high courts as well as the Supreme Court of Pakistan.”

  • Ahead of Maryam’s jalsa, FIRs registered in Gujranwala for violating coronavirus SOPs

    Ahead of Maryam’s jalsa, FIRs registered in Gujranwala for violating coronavirus SOPs

    Over 100 people, including internet service providers, sound system organisers and residents holding corner meetings, have been named in at least seven FIRs [First Information Reports] at different police stations across Gujranwala for violating coronavirus guidelines ahead of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz’s jalsa.

    The daughter of former prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif is due to hold a public gathering in the city on October 16 as part of the joint opposition’s anti-government campaign. She is expected to be joined by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari as well in what is expected to be a mammoth power show by opposition parties.

    While PM Imran Khan has reportedly given permission to the opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) for holding its protest rallies that are expected to feature fiery speeches against the government and security establishment as it puts forward 26 demands, including the resignation of the premier, sources claim that authorities concerned are springing into action in this regard.

    “After Federal Minister Sheikh Rasheed’s warning that the next few months could be critical in terms of internal security and any prominent personal could suffer an attempt on his or her life, coronavirus is being used as a reason to bar the opposition from protesting against the government,” they alleged.

    However, according to the police, the people named in the aforementioned FIRs had not been following coronavirus SOPs, especially social distancing rules.

    “Residents have to submit a request for an NOC [no-objection certificate] before holding gatherings,” a police officer said, adding that Gujranwala’s chief police officer had instructed the police to ensure strict implementation of COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) in the city.

    “The government has been cracking down on restaurants and other public spaces across the country for violation of SOPs since the number of cases in Pakistan spiked again in September,” he said.

    NEW COVID-19 RULES:

    Earlier in the day, it was also reported that the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) has said public gatherings should preferably be avoided and those that are held, their duration should not exceed for more than three hours.

    Interestingly, the NCOC made it clear that the guidelines were not for wedding events or sports ones as separate SOPs had been issued for the former and for the latter, will be released soon.

    The NCOC defined a public gathering as an event “where people are assembled on any given space; indoor or outdoor, for some purpose such as cultural events, religious gatherings, sports events, entertainment/cultural events, parties, political gatherings or other similar events”. 

    The following public gatherings will have to follow the newly issued guidelines: 

    • Entertainment/Cultural Gatherings

    • Public gatherings of Unions/Associations or any such group

    • Religious gatherings

    • Political gatherings

    • Family gatherings

    • Civil society group gatherings

    • Sports related gatherings (SOPs to be issued separately)

    • Marriage (being a frequent & obligatory activity) has been excluded from the list and a separate list of SOPs comprising strict restrictions has already been issued for it

    A day earlier, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) had warned that a second coronavirus wave could hit the country this winter. 

    The PMC warned authorities and the general public about the foreseeable second spike of coronavirus, saying that it is likely to start from educational institutions as it happened in the United States (US), India and Iran.