Nawaz, Zardari are Mir Jafar, Mir Sadiq of Pakistan, says Imran

MANDI BAHAUDDIN: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said PML-N and PPP leaders Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are Mir Jafar and Mir Sadiq (traitors) of Pakistan, who have been looting the country for the last 30 years.

He alleged that Zardari and Nawaz are responsible for burdening the nation with huge debts. "They are not politicians; they are mafias, who have looted the nation in the past 30 years," Imran added while addressing a big public rally in Mandi Bahauddin on Sunday.

"Enemies are not capable of harming the country to the extent that these mafias have." The PTI leader said the nation was being pushed into poverty due to the debt and inflation that had been brought upon the country's economy and the nation by these ‘mafias’. "The corruption mafia is looting the country," Imran insisted, adding that unfathomable amount of deep-rooted corruption exists even in the process of collecting taxes.

He said that only the common man is paying taxes, while the elite of the country, including Zardari, elude authorities. "I will catch the influential crooks by introducing reforms to the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB)," he said, "and after these criminals are brought to justice, the common man will be relieved from paying high taxes."

The PTI leader claimed that the country was suffering from corruption involving 4,000 billion rupees, while only 3,500 billion rupees were collected in  taxes. "The money laundered from Pakistan easily amounts to a 1,000 billion rupees," Imran claimed, as he stressed the need for urgent reforms for the country's economic framework and institutions responsible to build efforts against corruption.

He also claimed that he faced many hardships inflicted on him by the same mafia (Nawaz and Zardari), ever since he started his political struggle. "This mafia continues to damage Pakistan for its own benefits," he said. Imran mentioned the testimony of Lyari gang war kingpin Uzair Baloch to fling allegations at Zardari.

“Baloch confessed that at the behest of Zardari, he got people murdered and illegally took over 14 sugar mills in the province to sell them at throwaway prices to the PPP co-chairman," Imran said. “What is this if not corrupt mafia?”

Taking a jibe at the former prime minister, Imran claimed that the Sharif family accumulated billions of dollars in wealth by looting the people of Pakistan. "Since the past 30 years, the Sharif mafia, labelled as the godfather by the Supreme Court, has captured Punjab," he said.