LAHORE: Federal Minister and PML-N leader Mian Javed Latif said on Wednesday that general elections in the country will be held on stipulated time.
Talking to media here today, he said if the mastermind of May 9 and 10 gets any concession, the nation will not tolerate it because this is not an attack on an institution but on the state and security of Pakistan.
Those who have brought petitions of not being punished under the Army Act should be asked when the Army Act was made, where they were at that time, he posed a question. He said that May 9 rioters should be tried and punished to avoid such happening. He wondered why the people are filing petitions against Army Act now; this Act has been there since 1952.
Responding to a query, Javed Latif said, “Yes, we criticized those institutions which violated the constitution and gave judgments which created racial discrimination and brought about the country’s economic destruction. We were justified to criticize them.” He added but neither the army was made a target nor military installations were attacked. He said that May 9 spasm was in fact an attack on the state.
To another query, he said, “If in-service army men can face trial, why not the retired officers.”
Talking about the ISPR DG statement that three army officers, including a lieutenant general, were sacked from their jobs as a part of the military’s “self-accountability process” into the events of May 9, the PML-N leader also demanded punishment for those who launched the ‘Project Chairman PTI’.
If those who launched this project were not arrested and punished along with the in-service servicemen, incidents like May 9 might happen again, he opined. “Our target was not only to punish those people, rather our target was to get those who caused unrest and economic misery in Pakistan,” he said.
He said that an institution held its officers accountable and set an example for others, hopefully the justice-providing institution will also follow suit.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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