ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday promised to gather “a sea of people” in front of the parliament building in Islamabad one day ahead of the no-trust voting against him at the National Assembly while addressing a public rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Dir region.
The opposition submitted a no-confidence motion against Khan earlier this week while hoping to bring down his administration and take the country toward fresh general elections.
The prime minister held meetings with his coalition partners soon after the development, though his senior cabinet members maintained the government still had the majority in the house.
Addressing the gathering on Friday, the prime minister bitterly criticized top opposition leaders while saying they had plundered the country and stashed all their wealth abroad.
“The whole nation will witness a sea of people on D-Chowk [facing the parliament building] one day ahead of the no-confidence session,” he told a roaring crowd of his party followers.
While the no-trust motion has been initiated against the prime minister, the National Assembly session to process it has not been announced yet.
Referring to the heads of three opposition parties — the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — that filed the no-confidence motion, he said: “The reason why I am asking people to come out ahead of the no-trust voting is to show these three stooges that this nation is still alive.”
Khan added the people of Pakistan were capable of distinguishing between good and evil.
He even went on to say that he was praying to God for the opposition to bring the no-trust motion against him.
“Now I can make all three wickets fall with a single bowl,” the prime minister, a former cricket great, said amid a huge round of applause.
Responding to his speech, president of the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) alliance Maulana Fazlur Rehman asked the election commission how the prime minister could hold such public rallies when a no-confidence motion had been filed against him.
“He used to say ideal things [ahead of the last general elections],” he told a news conference in Islamabad. “Now his narrative is not going to work since he has been tried and exposed.”
Rehman also criticized the prime minister for using “coarse language” against him and other opposition leaders, saying a man like Khan did not deserve to be the prime minister of the country.
PM Khan promises ‘sea of people’ in front of parliament a day before no-trust vote
https://arab.news/4dt4f
PM Khan promises ‘sea of people’ in front of parliament a day before no-trust vote
- The prime minister calls heads of opposition parties ‘three stooges’ who plundered the nation
- Head of the PDM opposition alliance tells Khan he has been ‘tried and exposed’ after the last elections
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
