ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry said intelligence agencies have reported a plot to assassinate the prime minister.
The security of Imran Khan has since then been beefed up after these reports, he said in a shocking tweet.
سیکیورٹی ایجنسیوں نے رپورٹ کیا ہے کہ وزیر اعظم عمران خان پر قاتلانہ حملےکا منصوبہ سامنے آیا ہے، ان رپورٹس کے بعد حکومتی فیصلے کے مطابق وزیر اعظم کی سیکیورٹی میں اضافہ کر دیا گیا ہے۔
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) April 1, 2022
The tweet came days after former minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Faisal Vawda said that a conspiracy was being hatched to assassinate Khan over his refusal to “sell the country”.
He made the claim on Wednesday on the ARY News programme “Off the Record” in response to a question about Lettergate which the prime minister said contained “evidence” of a “foreign conspiracy” to topple his government.
Khan raised the issue of the letter on Sunday — citing an unnamed “foreign power” — at a huge rally of his supporters in Islamabad.
Vawda said there was a threat to Khan’s life but remained evasive when host Kashif Abbasi asked whether the purported plan to assassinate Khan was mentioned in the letter.
The former senator told Abbasi the prime minister was told multiple times that bulletproof glass needed to be installed before his dais at the March 27 rally. “But, as always and as usual, he said my [death] will come when Allah wills. Don’t worry about it,” he quoted Khan as saying.
US MEDDLING
In a speech delivered to the nation Last night, Khan accused the United States of meddling in internal politics — a claim quickly denied by Washington — as a debate on the no-confidence motion against him in the National Assembly was postponed.
No prime minister has ever seen out a full term in Pakistan, and Khan is facing the biggest challenge to his rule since being elected in 2018, with opponents accusing him of economic mismanagement and foreign-policy bungling.
The government is also battling to contain a rise in militancy by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Fighting for his political life, Khan addressed the nation, appearing to blunder when he named the United States as the origin of a “message” he said showed meddling in Pakistan’s affairs.
“America has — oh, not America but a foreign country I can’t name. I mean from a foreign country, we received a message,” he said.
Reports appearing in the media have said the message was in a briefing letter from Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, recording a senior US official telling him they felt relations would be better if the prime minister left office.
“They say that ‘our anger will vanish if Imran Khan loses this no-confidence vote’,” he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters there was “no truth” to the allegations.
“We are closely following developments in Pakistan. We respect (and) we support Pakistan’s constitutional process and the rule of law,” Price said.
Khan has long complained that Pakistan was asked to sacrifice too much in joining Washington’s “war on terror”, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, with too little recognition or reward.
“Has anyone said ‘thank you Pakistan’ for what we did?” he asked in Thursday’s address.
Khan spoke off-the-cuff for around 45 minutes, touching on several topics including his efforts to get Islamophobia recognised as a global threat, and charting an independent path for Pakistan on the world stage.
— With input from AFP
