ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party said on Tuesday there was no room in a democracy to combine the roles of “judge, jury and executioner” into one individual or institution, a day after the army vowed trials under military laws for those behind violent acts against military installations following the ex-premier’s arrest.
Last week, Khan was dragged out of a courtroom and arrested in Islamabad in a land fraud case, unleashing violent protests by his supporters who stormed military properties and establishments, set ablaze a state broadcaster building, smashed buses, ransacked a top army general’s house and attacked other assets, resulting in the army being deployed in multiple cities. Hundreds were arrested in the aftermath and at least six people were killed.
On Monday, after a special meeting of the military’s top commanders, the army said “perpetrators, spoilers and violators” involved in the violence would be tried under relevant Pakistani laws, including the Pakistan Army Act and Official Secret Act. Both laws allow for the death sentence and life imprisonment, with trials held by secretive military courts.
“There is no room in a religious, democratic and constitutional system to put together the judge, jury and executioner in a single individual or institution,” Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said in a statement that began with the party saying it considered the announcement by the army’s corps commanders “very important.”
The party said its supporters had held peaceful protests after Khan’s “abduction,” which was their democratic right, and “armed anarchists were inducted into the ranks of peaceful protesters as part of a well-thought-out plan.”
The party said evidence it had collected from the countrywide protests showed officials of Pakistani intelligence agencies were involved in arson attacks and firing at certain places. It did not name a particular agency.
“The plan was to spread chaos which could be blamed on Tehreek-e-Insaf to justify the ongoing crackdown against it,” the PTI said.
In a video message released on Monday evening, Khan said attacks on state institutions following his arrest took place under a “planned conspiracy” to get his party banned.
“I want to tell the nation that you have to defeat this conspiracy,” he said, calling for an independent inquiry. “Miscreants with weapons were inserted into the protests under a planned conspiracy and they incited the protesters … we have video evidence of this.”
Responding to Khan’s accusations of a conspiracy against his party, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb cited the examples of several PTI leaders who she said had been caught on camera and videotape giving instructions for violence.
“Do you think everyone will buy this narrative?” she said.
Khan, who was ousted from the office of the prime minister in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence last April, has blamed the army, and its then army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, of plotting with his political rivals, who now form the incumbent coalition government of PM Shehbaz Sharif, to remove him.
Khan came to power in a 2018 general election widely believed to have been rigged in his favor by the military — which both deny — but has since had a falling out with the army. He has said in recent interviews that his party’s relations with the army have not improved under the new army chief, Gen Asim Munir.
Tensions have also sharply escalated between the former prime minister and the military since last November when he blamed a serving intelligence officer, Major General Faisal Naseer, for masterminding an apparent assassination attempt on his life. Khan has also said Naseer was behind the murder of a pro-Khan TV anchor, Arshad Sharif, shot dead in Nairobi last year in what Kenyan police have called a case of “mistaken identity.”
Last week, the army formally released a statement against Khan and his party, calling the accusations “highly irresponsible and baseless” and warning of legal action if the “propaganda” continued.
