Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he holds no grudge against Nawaz Sharif and that the former PM’s health is more important than politics.
The statement came a day after PML-N chief Shehbaz Sharif warned that he would hold Imran Khan responsible if anything happened to his brother as his administration was “dilly dallying on the removal of Nawaz’s name from the no-fly list”.
Presiding over a meeting of the PTI core committee on Friday, the prime minister said his government had facilitated the Sharif family patriarch at every forum on humanitarian grounds and also came up with a legal option to strike his name off the Exit Control List (ECL).
He said the government had no issues if the Sharif family opted to approach the court instead of furnishing an indemnity bond for the removal of Nawaz’s name from the ECL. However, the prime minister regretted that the Sharif family was “playing politics” on the 69-year-old politician’s health.
The interior ministry on Wednesday decided to grant former premier Nawaz “one-time” permission to travel abroad for medical treatment for four weeks provided he submits an indemnity bond to the tune of Rs7 billion. The PML-N snubbed the condition and challenged it in the Lahore High Court on Friday.
Premier Imran noted that Nawaz’s health was deteriorating and his family’s first priority should be to take him abroad for treatment instead of wrangling over the issue of the indemnity bond.
Participants of the PTI’s core committee meeting also decided to take legal action against JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman for criticising the state institutions in his incendiary speeches during the 13-day-long dharna of his party in Islamabad.
The prime minister said the firebrand cleric had severely damaged the Kashmir cause through his so-called ‘Azadi March’ and also used the “religion card” at his dharna. “The nation has rejected the Maulana’s narrative,” he said, adding that the JUI-F chief was now hoodwinking the people through ‘Plan B’ of his ‘Azadi March’.
