Pak Army condemns Imran Khan for ‘baseless’ allegations against ISI officer

Pakistan’s military on Monday condemned Prime Minister Imran Khan for making extremely irresponsible and baseless allegations against a serving ISI officer without any evidence. With this, the war of words between the former prime minister and the powerful army has started again. The strongly worded statement by the army’s media wing ‘Inter-Services Public Relations’ (ISPR) also said that Khan’s fabricated and malicious allegations are extremely unfortunate, condemnable and unacceptable.

It has been observed in the last one year that officials of the army and intelligence agencies are being targeted and castigated for political purposes, the statement said. Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had slammed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Khan for defaming and threatening the military and intelligence agencies. Khan had told a rally on Saturday that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer Major General Faisal Naseer was plotting to kill him.

Khan has alleged that Major General Faisal Naseer, the ISI officer who twice tried to assassinate him, was involved in the murder of senior journalist Arshad Sharif. Arshad Sharif, a critic of the military, was assassinated in Kenya in October last year. He had fled the country citing threat to his life from the security agencies. Police in Kenya shot an investigative journalist, killing him.

Kenyan police said in their initial report that the 49-year-old man was shot dead in his car due to mistaken identity. Khan (71) had earlier accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah as well as General Naseer of attempting to assassinate him in Wazirabad in Punjab province in November last year. In this attack, he had three bullets in his leg.

Disclaimer:IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.