The Pakistan government on Monday decided to ban the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), citing the party’s involvement in various anti-state acts.
“The decisions were taken in light of the former ruling party’s involvement in the May 9 events and the PTI’s former or current leaders’ attempts to sabotage Pakistan’s deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar said.
The former Prime Minister, Imran Khan, is accused of exposing state secrets and instigating rioting. “We believe that there is credible evidence that PTI should be banned,” he added.
The information minister stated that the issue of the largest opposition party in Pakistan being banned will be taken before the cabinet and, if necessary, the Supreme Court.
Tarar said that the government led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its allies had decided to submit a review appeal against the Supreme Court’s ruling granting the PTI reserved seats in the National Assembly. “The apex court gave relief to the PTI, which had not even asked for it,” the minister said.
The minister said the ruling alliance has also decided to file a case against the then-prime minister, then-president Alvi, and then-National Assembly deputy speaker Qasim Suri, referring to the period when the then-government chose to dissolve the assemblies during the no-confidence motion against Khan in 2022.
“Whether it was the foreign funding case, the riots of May 9, or the manipulation of the cipher saga, in which the former Pakistani ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, who authored the cipher – clarified that there was “no threat,” the PTI maintained, decrying that the country was in danger.
In the meantime, Khan has been imprisoned for almost a year on a number of charges that he said were planned to keep him from winning the elections in February.
However, in an unprecedented ruling last week, the Supreme Court gave the PTI more parliamentary seats, and on Saturday, Khan’s conviction for an illegal marriage was reversed.
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