Web Desk (LTN NEWS): Minister for Defense Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Wednesday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and other members of his party started a social media campaign to hurt the state institutions after the Lasbela helicopter crash.
During a news conference, he said that the PTI leadership tried to draw attention away from the Pakistan Election Commission’s decision in the foreign funding case, which was actually an indictment of them for using charity funds for political purposes.
Khawaja Asif said that the verdict in the foreign funding case, which came out after eight years, showed that Imran Khan used the money for his own and the country’s benefit.
The minister said that Imran got money from all over the world in the name of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, which had a good name as a social welfare group, but then used the money for his political activities.
He said that the PTI had been making new plans to deal with the thousands of illegal funding sources that came to light after the ECP’s decision.
Khawaja Asif said that they did not even spare the Lasbela helicopter tragedy. The whole country was saddened by the deaths of brave and skilled Pakistan Army officers, but the PTI social media team and its “warriors,” who are fully supported by their Indian counterparts, are running a malicious campaign against Pakistan. Some other countries also helped with the plan to hurt Pakistan.
He also said that 529 social media accounts from Pakistan, 18 from India, and 33 from other countries were used in the dirty social media campaign. Each account had a different name.
“An attack on the army is an attack on Pakistan,” the minister said. The survival of the country depends on strong defense institutions, and the two go hand in hand.
He said that the investigation into the anti-Pakistan drive was almost done and that the results would be released soon. The law would be used to punish the “criminals.”
He said again that the case had nothing to do with politics because those who did things against the state would be punished according to the law.
The minister said that the whole country shared the grief of the families of those who died in Lasbela, even though the PTI is using social media to spread lies about the event.
When asked about the supposed distractions, he said that the PTI’s first distraction was the tweets about what happened in Lasbela. The second case was about Shahbaz Gill. Imran Khan didn’t say anything for six days, and then he said that Gill shouldn’t have said what he did, which he said showed that PTI leaders were trying to anger the army.
He also said that the Punjab home minister had said Gill’s claims that he was beaten in jail were not true. “They also tried to create more distractions about this issue, but this has to stop since all departments are working on it.”
He also said that the departments in charge were trying to find out who was behind the social media campaign that had been going on for at least two months. The information about the people in charge of social media campaigns had been confirmed and checked, and more information would be made public in the coming days.
In the investigation into the social media campaign, the government won’t do anything that could make it look like it’s trying to settle a political score or getting even.
He said that after Imran Khan lost power, he became desperate. “At first, he said that getting rid of him was a foreign plot, but then he accepted 36 pickup vans that the US Embassy gave him and now accuses us of being part of the plot.”
He said that Imran Khan talked with the US envoy about a pardon behind the scenes. He even spent $25,000 a month on a lobbyist to improve his relationship with the US.
Khawaja Asif said that Imran Khan had selective amnesia because he forgot that he had said things that were bad for state institutions.
No patriotic Pakistani will put up with this kind of language, and they wouldn’t even think of using it against state institutions at the request of Indians. This was a plan by the PTI and India to fight against the Pakistan Army.
He said that Indians were saying openly on their news channels that Imran Khan’s story had made it easier for India to promote its plans to hurt Pakistan.
