ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan told a public rally in Sialkot on Saturday there was a threat to his life, adding that he had recorded a video in which he had named everyone who had conspired against him since last summer.
Khan, who was driven out of the top political office in his country in a no-confidence vote last month, has attributed the downfall of his administration to an international conspiracy hatched in the United States in response to his independent approach to Pakistan’s foreign policy.
He also repeated the same claim during the power show in Sialkot where a large number of workers and supporters of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had gathered to hear his speech.
US officials have repeated denied the accusation against them.
“A conspiracy is being hatched against me behind closed doors in and outside the country,” he told the massive gathering of people carrying PTI flags. “And that conspiracy is that they want to take Imran Khan’s life. Listen to this: I knew about this conspiracy before and I became fully aware of it a few days ago.”
“I have recorded a video and placed it at a secure location,” he continued. “If anything happens to me, this video will be brought before the whole nation. And I have taken the name of every single individual who was involved in this conspiracy against me since last summer.”
Khan has refused to accept the new government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and raised questions about the role played by various state institutions in his removal.
Speaking to a local news channel, Pakistan’s interior minister Rana Sanaullah dismissed Khan’s latest statement.
“There is nothing like this and if he [Khan] has any evidence [of a threat to his life] then he should come forward with it,” Sanauallah told Samaa TV. “We will treat it as a first information report and launch a complete investigation.”
Earlier in the day, the PTI switched the venue for the Sialkot rally after the Christian community denied it permission to hold the event on the grounds of a church-run school.
Members of Khan’s PTI party were preparing to hold Saturday’s rally at the CTI Christian Boys School Ground in Sialkot, but local authorities stopped them after the local Christian community objected to using the ground for “political purposes.”
Local media reported the police tear-gassed and baton-charged PTI supporters who resisted the move. Dawn News footage showed police at the venue as people stood atop a crane in an apparent attempt to prevent authorities from razing structures erected for the rally.
Reverend Dr. Majeed Abel of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan said in a video statement that the school was the property of the Presbyterian Church of the United States and had been handed over to the local Presbyterian Education Board to hold school functions and the annual event of the mission.
“The campus cannot be used for any other purposes,” the pastor said.
After the local administration stopped the PTI from holding the rally on the school grounds, the principal of the school thanked them in a video message.
“I am grateful to the administration in Sialkot, DPO [district police officer], deputy commissioner ... that they stopped a rally from being illegally held on the CTI school ground. They have stopped it and handed the ground back to us,” the principal of the school said in comments to local media.
After the PTI was stopped from holding the rally at the CTI ground, ex-PM Khan took to Twitter and in a series of posts accused the government of destroying “all democratic norms when in power.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a legislator from Sialkot, said the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was not trying to block the PTI from holding a rally.
“Holding a rally is a basic democratic right and it is not our way to obstruct it,” Asif said on Twitter. “We support safeguarding the rights of our opponents as well.”
He also posted a copy of a notification by the deputy commissioner Sialkot that said the PTI could hold the rally at “any other suitable venue” but not a site that held “religious sanctity for Christians all around the country.”
In a video clip shared online, Sialkot district police officer Hassan Iqbal said the PTI had not been barred from holding the rally.
“No one is stopping from the jalsa (rally) itself. Where you stand, this place is the private land of Presbyterian American Society, for which you have not taken due permission from them,” he was seen telling a crowd of PTI supporters at the site.
After the incident, Shafqat Mahmood, a senior PTI leader and former education minister, told reporters the rally’s venue has been moved to the VIP cricket ground in the city.