Probe against Faiz Hameed under way: minister

ISLAMABAD: The investigation agencies are conducting an inquiry against former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed and any progress about it will be shared, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference, the minister said: “Only the institution can conduct Faiz’s court martial,” adding that the General Headquarters holds the military trial, not the interior ministry, Geo News reported.

While speaking about the ban on public gatherings imposed in Lahore, Sanaullah said the government had imposed Section 144 in light of security reports by intelligence agencies.

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had been asked to share the route of their rally but the Imran group didn’t provide any details.

“Fitna, anarchy, and chaos are his [Imran’s] ways,” he added.

The minister said that there were several events, including Aurat March and Haya March, simultaneously taking place in Lahore.

While mocking the PTI chief, Sanaullah said, “Imrani fitna announced the burger march” and selected the same place for their election rally which the Aurat March rally organisers had already picked.

He said that “fitna Khan found it fit to highlight his own fitna in between” all these developments.

Sanaullah said that everything was being done in the same area, therefore, any untoward incident could occur in such a situation.

There was no justification for Imran to hold a rally on Women’s Day, he added.

The interior minister said Imran was evading court appearances by “displaying his plastered leg”, but at the same time, he was staging big rallies. He said that courts had been seeking replies from the deposed prime minister but he was getting relief instead.

“Any further relief for him will raise questions. Judiciary’s impartiality will be hurt,” he added. “We respect the courts and their decisions,” he said.

Heaping scorn on the PTI chief, Sanaullah said that Imran wanted to establish the state of Madina but his actions were totally opposed to that.

He said that Khan didn’t want to appear in the courts on the basis of his excuses. “You [Khan] don’t even have the defence in three of the cases [against him],” the minister said.

Sanaullah requested the courts not to give any more relief to Khan in case he skips the hearings on March 13 again.

The minister said arresting Imran Khan was not a big issue, but the government wanted that he should be convicted by the courts for the crimes he had committed.

The PTI leader persistently maligned others for corruption, but Farah Gogi kept looting the national wealth and stuffing it abroad under his nose while he was the prime minister, he added. To a question, he said the new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau was a reputed officer of the Pakistan Army, who would hopefully carry out the accountability process in a transparent manner.

Moreover, the minister requested Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) to organise Haya March on March 7 or 9, instead of March 8 when there are several events, including the Aurat March, which is held on account of International Women’s Day.

“Aurat March is taking place on March 8, our mothers and sisters are marching in it,” he said, adding that the day holds immense importance for the women. He said women take to the streets to highlight two separate narratives.