Senior leaders of PTI including Noorul Haq Qadri, Asad Qaiser and Iftikhar Durrani held a press conference in KPK House, Islamabad on Wednesday to debunk the accusations levelled against PTI Chairman Imran Khan by Javed Latif.
“We strongly condemn the use of religion and state resources to deceive and misinform the people regarding Imran Khan” Asad Qaiser said while referring to the press conference of Javed Latif he held earlier in the day at the PTV headquarters. He criticized the government for using religion to spread hatred against former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “They are using state resources to spread religious hatred and chaos in the country” he said. “If they believe they can deceive the people through such shameless propaganda against the largest political party and the most popular leader—Imran khan, they are misled”, he added.
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“Imran Khan’s service towards religion is in front of the people”, Asad Qaiser said while recalling Imran Khan’s efforts to tackle Islamophobia and blasphemy on the international level and the pro-Islam legislation done during PTI government. “PTI government passed a bill against interest in KPK, we made study of Quran with translation mandatory in schools from nursery up till matric, we included Seerat-un-Nabi in the curriculum, we worked on Rahmatul lil aalameen Authority”, former speaker of national assembly said while listing PTI’s efforts for Islam.
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“Spreading religious hatred for political goals in condemnable”, he went on to criticize Javed Latif while questioning his understanding of Islam. He said that PTI is a symbol of national unity as it enjoys support from all ethnicities in Pakistan. He further told the government to focus on the economic and governance crisis in the country instead of spreading religious hatred.
Former Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Noorul Haq Qadri, while addressing the press conference said that it is not just Javed Latif, it is a planned campaign of the PMLN to discredit Imran Khan by using religion card in order to cover their own incompetence. “I did not join PTI just for Imran Khan’s political ideology; his religious ideology, viewpoints and opinions inspired me to join his political party”, he said. He went on to praise Imran Khan for his love of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and his struggle against Islamophobia and blasphemy, to which, Mr. Qadri said, he is first-hand witness.
آج پی ڈی ایم نیشنل ایکشن پلان اور آئین پاکستان کی خلاف ورزی کی مرتکب ہوگئی ہے-
سرکاری ٹی وی کو مہذبی اشتعال انگیزی کے لئے استعمال کیا گیا۔
جاوید لطیف نے سرکاری وسائل و ٹی وی کا استعمال کرتے ہوئے نفرت انگیز مفاد نشر کیاڈاکٹر @IftikharDurani 1/2 pic.twitter.com/iol1gbtkxK
— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 14, 2022
Former Federal Minister Iftikhar Durrani said that the government, by using PTV to spread religious hatred, has committed the crime of violating the National Action Plan, according to which spreading religious hatred has been prohibited. He condemned the “anti-constitutional” tactics of the government against Imran Khan. He also recalled the shameful tactics of PMLN deployed for character assassination of the Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. “PMLN is a product of dictatorship, hence they are not used to political struggle; whenever they feel threatened by their political rivals they lauch personal attacks against them”, he said.
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Durrani went on to say that the PDM has realized that they have lost politically hence they have launched personal attacks against Imran Khan, same as they had done before the 2018 general elections by launching the book of Reham Khan. He also questioned the role of PEMRA in the whole development saying that it had pressurized the TV networks into boycotting Imran Khan’s telethon that he was conducting to raise funds for the flood-hit people, but it failed to censor the spread of religious hatred by Javed Latif. He urged the media channels to not air such press conferences as of Javed Latif.
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The press conference of PTI came a few hours after Federal Minister Mian Javed Latif held a press conference at PTV Headquarter in the federal capital in which he accused Imran Khan of promoting secularism and creating chaos in the country. Addressing the press conference Javed Latif urged the Federal Shariat Court to take a suo moto notice of Imran Khan’s remarks, “which negate Islamic teachings”. He also urged the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) to summon Imran on the matter. He had accused the PTI chairman of attacking the basic principles of Islam and supporting the Ahmediyya community during his tenure.