Imran terms Mashal Khan's killing 'defining moment,' vows to punish culprits

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan has termed the lynching of Mashal Khan a "defining moment" like the attack on Army Public School Peshawar, and vowed to take it to "logical end".

Speaking on Geo News' programme 'Capital Talk,' Khan likened the brutal lynching to gruesome APS carnage, which unified all political parties and led to the National Action Plan to wipe out terrorists from the country.

He said that Mashal's killing has brought a consensus, "People are scared of the incident, the fact that a person can decide that someone has committed blasphemy and kill him".

"Anyone can create a fake blog of mine and write something that Imran Khan has committed blasphemy. And someone comes and kills me without inquiring," the PTI chief said, while elaborating the seriousness of the matter.

"This is worse than the law of the jungle," he maintained. "That was horrific, what came forth."

Khan said that it has been revealed that Mashal Khan had no fault, adding, "We will pursue it."

The PTI chairman said that no Muslim would tolerate blasphemy of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) or Islam, however, one should be given a chance to prove his innocence.

He went on to say that he spoke to the IG Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and they would go into the depth to identify the ones responsible for Mashal Khan's brutal lynching.

"We will take it to logical end. Those responsible will be punished in a way that people fear about doing any such thing," the PTI chief resolved.

"We will not spare anyone who is behind the incident," he added.

'Won’t allow repetition of 2013-like elections'

About his meeting with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, he said that he conveyed to the army chief that PTI will not let the next elections be rigged as, according to him, had happened in 2013.

Khan said that he reiterated in front of Gen Bajwa that free and fair elections were a cornerstone of democracy.

Expanding on the meeting, he said that he requested a meeting mainly to discuss two issues, namely, Pak-Afghan border tensions and the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that both issues were directly affecting KP and after the closure of the border by the army, he thought it was important to discuss the issue with the army chief.

The PTI chairman said the army chief had expressed his support for democracy in the meeting. “He ‘clearly’ said that he supports democracy.”

The army chief said that as an institution the army supports free and fair elections, the PTI chief added.

When asked if he also discussed Gen (retd) Raheel Sharif’s appointment as the chief of Saudi-led alliance, Imran said that he did and that many other issues came under discussion in the hour-long meeting.

Imran Khan on April 1 called on the army chief, an Inter-Services Public Relations statement had said.

The PTI chief felicitated General Bajwa on his promotion and appointment and discussed various issues in the meeting, according to the statement.

Later in the day at PTI's Billion Tree Tsunami Project, Imran Khan had announced his meeting with General Bajwa, saying, "I will say one thing about the army chief, the good news is that he stands with democracy in Pakistan.”

PTI Central Information Secretary Naeem ul Haque had said the meeting lasted for an hour, during which national and international issues were discussed.

 

Edited by Sindhu Abassi