Web Desk (LTN NEWS): On Sunday, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah slammed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for making up a “fake story” about party leader Dr. Shahbaz Gill being tortured to get people to stop thinking about the sedition case against him.
Sanaullah, the interior minister, says the PTI leader will have to face the law for threatening a judge and police officers.
At a press conference in Islamabad, the minister denied PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s claims that Gill was tortured. He said that Khan’s claims were “lies” meant to distract the public from the controversial things Imran’s chief of staff had said.
Rana made it clear that the coalition government did not believe in torture of any kind. “At the request of Imran Niazi, the PTI started a terrible campaign about the Lasbela incident by making horrible accusations about the families of the Pakistan Army soldiers who died and the soldiers who died in the incident,” he said.
“Continuing, Dr. Shahbaz Gill went on TV on August 8 with a set plan and said things about the Pakistan Army that were against Imran Khan’s plans. “Gill had everything planned with the private TV channel, from when they would call him to how long the conversation would last.”
He said that politicians had talked about the establishment getting involved in politics many times, but no one had ever said that army officers shouldn’t follow orders from the high command. He also said that no state or organization would ever let someone spread such rumors.
The minister pointed out that the PTI leader himself hadn’t filed any complaints about the torture in custody. He called the whole “episode a drama” that was only for the media and had no legal basis. “Gill is being treated fairly in jail,” he said.
“The PML-N leadership thinks that any kind of abuse is a clear violation of Pakistan’s Constitution, and we strongly oppose all forms of violence because Imran Khan put our entire leadership through mental and physical pain during his time in office,” he said.
Gill, Imran’s chief of staff, was arrested on August 9 after a first information report (FIR) was filed at the Kohsar police station in the federal capital for telling army officers not to follow the orders of the high command.
Gill was brought before the judicial magistrate 24 hours after he was arrested on charges of sedition. On August 11, a medical board checked on Gill’s health and found that he was healthy. On August 12, he was sent to jail on judicial remand.
Gill did not say that he or she had been tortured by the medical board. He was also in Adiyala Jail from August 12 to August 17, but the minister said he never said he was tortured there. “As the minister of the interior, I can say for sure that Gill was not tortured while in police custody,” he said.
Additionally, he brought up the PTI leader’s address at a rally on Saturday night, in which he criticized the IG of Islamabad, Dr. Akbar Nasir Khan, the DIG, and Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry, who remanded Gill to police custody.
The minister, who is also a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), told reporters, “A case should be filed against him [Imran Khan] for inciting the public against state officials who are only doing their jobs according to the law.”
