Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Monday blamed “agencies’ men” for the arson and rioting recorded in several cities during the May 9 demonstrations triggered by his arrest in the Al-Qadir Trust corruption case.
In a Twitter post that included a video statement, he said the PTI has “ample amount of evidence” for an “independent inquiry” to establish that the arson “and in some places shootings” were done by “agencies’ men” who wished to create mayhem and blame it on his party to justify the ongoing crackdown against its leadership and supporters.
In the accompanying video statement, he alleged that an “organized conspiracy” was to blame for the ransacking of government buildings and the Lahore Corps Commander’s house. Alleging that “miscreants” had infiltrated into the PTI’s ranks and instigated its workers to damage public and private property, he claimed the party had video evidence proving this.
“I want an independent inquiry,” he said, of the May 9 protests, reiterating that this was part of the “London plan” to ban his party and put all its leaders behind bars. Earlier in the day, Khan had detailed the alleged “London plan,” claiming it called for a ban on his party and his imprisonment for the next 10 years to remove him and the PTI from politics.
While the PTI chief has not provided the “ample” evidence of agencies’ alleged involvement in the rioting of May 9, he shared on Twitter two videos seeking to show that the party’s leadership had attempted to halt the rioting. The first video appeared to show PTI Punjab President Dr. Yasmin Rashid urging the rioters not to enter the Corps Commander’s house, while the second appeared to show his sisters calling for restraint.
“Our Central Punjab President Dr. Yasmin Rashid and my sisters clearly telling the protesters not to harm Jinnah house,” he wrote in a post accompanying the videos. “Clearly this was all stage managed by those who wanted to use this as a pretext to further crackdown on PTI, jail our workers and senior leadership along with me so that the assurances given to [Nawaz Sharif] in the London plan could be honored,” he claimed.
While Khan did not make any mention of it, the tweets appeared to be in response to an earlier statement issued by the military’s media wing after a Special Corps Commanders’ Conference at General Headquarters. In the statement, the military’s senior leadership vowed to not show any restraint to the rioters and announced it would prosecute them under all relevant laws, including the Army Act and the Official Secrets Act. It also made it clear that it had “irrefutable evidence” of the planners, instigators, abettors and perpetrators of the riots and warned that any attempts to “create distortions” would prove futile.