Move to disqualify Imran Khan over harassment

Islamabad: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) was moved on Wednesday to disqualify Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan over allegations of harassment levelled against him by lawmaker Ayesha Gulalai Wazir.

A citizen, Raja Basharat Mehmood filed an application before the ECP, calling for the disqualification of Imran Khan.

 According to the application, Imran Khan should be disqualified from National Assembly membership and by-election should be held in NA-56.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Supreme Court resumed hearing the disqualification case against Mr Imran.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab, is conducting proceedings into PML (Nawaz) leader Hanif Abbasi’s petition seeking Mr Imran’s disqualification for concealing his assets and ‘foreign funding’ of his party.

Mr Abbasi’s counsel Akram Sheikh in his arguments said: “How can someone who submitted a false certificate be considered sadiq (honest) and amin (truthful).”

Justice Bandial observed that the receipt of prohibited funds has to be established first. The court observed that it was the ECP’s job to determine if prohibited funds were acquired by the PTI.

The chief justice observed that under the Political Parties Act, no one could be disqualified for filing a fake certificate regarding party funds. He said that in the Representation of Peoples Act, nothing is mentioned regarding the consequence of filing a false declaration of party assets.

Earlier on Wednesday, PTI women wing termed flurry of scathing allegations from Ayesha Gulalai Wazir as an attempt to earn cheap publicity.

PTI women wing asked Ms Wazir to seek forgiveness over baseless allegations or else Jirga (a tribal council) would be sent to her home.

“If Gulalai does not seek forgiveness within a week, we would send Jirga as per tribal traditions,” asserted PTI leader Zareen Zia.

“Imran Khan respects all women and as far as text messages are concerned, he does not own a blackberry. These accusations have hurt sentiments of PTI workers,” she added.

Ms Wazir had alleged that the honour of PTI female members was not safe from Imran Khan and his gang. She said that Imran Khan sent ‘indecent’ text messages to female members of the party.

She revealed that the first message she received from Imran Khan was in October 2013 and many other female members also received those messages. She said that Imran Khan keeps Blackberry phone and asks the female members of the party to also carry Blackberry so that messages could not be traced.