Taliban are ‘ terrorists’, I don’t back them: Imran

Pakistan Tehrik- e- Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that he did not support Taliban or extremism.

The cricketer- turned politician said Taliban was a terrorist group. “Anyone who kills innocent people is a terrorist,” he said in an interview with Al- Jazeera.

Imran Khan has always been labelled as a Taliban apologist back home and has been criticised for allegedly defending the Pakistani Taliban globally and particularly within Pakistan.

When asked about his alleged connections with them and whether he backed the group or not, Imran Khan said, “This is absolute nonsense. It’s just not true. All you have to do is to look at my statements for the past 10 years.”

Despite all his repeated clarifications and explanations, Imran Khan received harsh political bashing when he recently confessed to have allocated a budget of Rs 300 million for Darul Uloom Haqqania, a religious seminary infamous for educating the Taliban fighters.

He said the seminary agreed to implement reforms in return for the allocated sum for the religious seminary.

Imran Khan also responded to accusations levelled by former President Asif Ali Zardari that the very donation was evidence he supported extremism.

“This is totally out of context,” Imran Khan said, explaining that the purpose of the funding from his party was to get the madrassa ( seminary) system into the mainstream. He said, “If it were a university for jihad ( holy war), it should have been shut down by previous governments in Pakistan.”