Asif advises Imran to keep his 'mouth shut' to reduce tensions

Reacting to a post sharedon the PTI founder Imran Khan’s X handle, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif Friday advised the incarcerated former prime minister to keep his "mouth shut" if he wanted to reduce the prevailing political tensions in the country.

"I think founder PTI wants to increase tension," said the minister in an exclusive interview with Geo News in the wake of the controversial social media post shared on Khan's official X — formerly Twitter — account.

A post on X was attributed to the former premier said: "Every Pakistani should study the Hamood ur Rahman Commission Report and get to know who was the true traitor, General Yahya Khan or Sheikh Mujibur Rahman."

Asif said the former prime minister, who remains incarcerated at the Adiala jail since August 2023, is trying again to create a situation like that on May 9.

The minister, commenting on the video in question, said attempts are being made to retract the tweet related to the former Bangladeshi president.

"Barrister Gohar [Khan] clarified that the social media team did not seek permission before tweeting," said the minister, adding that this was the first time that the party had to retract a post on their social media account.

Asif said he has a different stand on the history of the Bangladeshi politician and the tragedy of East Pakistan.

"By exaggerating the tragedy of East Pakistan today, you want to increase the tension," he said, slamming Khan and his party.

The minister maintained that whether it was in politics or sports, the former premier had stung everyone who had done good to him.

"General [Qamar Javed] Bajwa's father, General Faiz [Hamid] was his uncle, now [he is] dumping all the debris at them," said Asif, commenting on Khan's relationship dynamics with the former military men when he was in power.

Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) cyber crime team on Thursday decided to initiate action against Khan over his controversial tweet on social media.

To pursue an investigation, the anti-crime body reached Adiala jail late Thursday night, but was turned down for a meeting by Khan.

According to the sources within Adiala jail, the former prime minister refused to become part of the FIA investigation related to the controversial social media post.

Khan refused to answer any questions from the FIA ​​team, said the sources. "I will answer any question in the presence of lawyers," he added.

On the other hand, PTI Chairman Gohar said that the post had nothing to do with Khan as he did not see the text of the posts that were uploaded to his account.

Gohar also defended the tweet and said it was taken out of context.

"The context and comparison that we drew with 1971 was in a political context and not otherwise — nothing about the army," the PTI chairman said.