Pakistan govt calls Imran Khan ‘liar’ over his role in alleged removal of Gen Munir as ISI chief

The war of words between former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and the establishment never ceases to end. On Sunday, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb called Imran a ‘liar’ after he tried to refute a news article that said he was behind the removal of General Asim Munir from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency in 2019.

“If this wasn’t the reason, what was? Do tell! The only reason you can’t give another reason because you know that this is the real reason. LIAR,” the minister said while responding to Imran Khan’s tweet on his wife’s corruption.

Imran had quote tweeted an article from The Telegraph, saying the content of the story was false.

“The article claims that I had made Gen Asim resign as DG ISI because he had shown me my wife Bushra begums corruption cases. This is completely false. Neither did Gen Asim show me any proofs of my wife’s corruption nor did I make him resign because of that,” tweeted Imran.

While General Munir took the centre-stage last November, succeeding Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), he had already clashed with Imran previously. According to the allegations that Khan refuted, General Munir, as the ISI chief wanted to investigate allegations of corruption around his wife and her circle.

However, in unsuspecting circumstances, Gen Munir was removed from his position, only eight months into what was meant to be a three-year term.

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Imran Khan says he will be arrested

The tussle between Imran and the government continued on Monday as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief said there was an 80 per cent chance that he was going to be arrested by the authorities when he goes to court in Islamabad.

“On Tuesday, I’m going to appear before the court in Islamabad for various bails and there are 80 per cent chances that I will be arrested,” said Imran in an interview.

Imran accused the ruling disposition of being aligned with the army. He said that by working together, they were “dismantling the democratic system” to keep him out,

The PTI chief claimed that over 10,000 workers had been arrested and the entire party senior leadership was put behind bars.

Khan was sent to the custody of the country’s top anti-corruption body for eight days. However, he was released after supreme court judges ruled that his arrest was “illegal and invalid”.

Since then, Khan has been making the rounds of the court, seeking bail in different cases and attempting to avoid time behind bars.

(With inputs from agencies)