Current developments in Pak may lead to another ‘Dhaka tragedy’, warns jailed Imran
ISLAMABAD: Jailed former PM Imran Khan drew a parallel between the political developments in Pakistan now and the circumstances leading to the 1971 Dhaka tragedy, warning that the present situation in the cashstrapped country could result in economic collapse.
The Dawn newspaper reported that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founding chairman in a message from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail reminded the current dispensation that “countries and institutions could not survive without a stable economy”.
PTI Central Information Secretary Raoof Hasan relayed Khan’s message to the media during a press conference after the party’s legal team met the 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician in jail on Wednesday, the day Eid was celebrated in Pakistan.
Barrister Raja told the media that Khan looked determined, though worried for the country and its people. Raja, who narrated Khan’s message, said, “When you don’t give rights to the people, you cannot say the economy will grow.”
“In 1970, army chief Yahya Khan wanted a hung Parliament, but when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s party got a clear majority, the army held a fraud by-election in which 80 seats of Awami League were snatched as Yahya Khan wanted to become president,” he said, referring to the political developments in the then East Pakistan.
“I want to remind the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report that we are again going to repeat the same blunders which we made in the past. In 1970, there was the London Plan and today again a government has been imposed through the London Plan,” Raja quoted Khan as saying.