Facilities provided to Imran in jail unimaginable for common people: Bugti

Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti has said that a “common citizen cannot even imagine” the facilities being provided to former prime minister Imran Khan in jail.

In an interview with Independent Urdu published today, Bugti said: “The facilities provided to him (Imran) are more than those provided to an ordinary prisoner or a prime minister behind bars as he is, after all, a laadla of the courts.

“The kind of facilities being provided to him in jail, they weren’t given to any prime minister and a common citizen cannot even imagine them,” he added.

Recalling Imran’s arrest on May 9, Bugti claimed directives were issued “within two minutes” to take the PTI chief to Islamabad Police Lines in a Mercedes.

The caretaker minister also mentioned former chief justice Umar Ata Bandial’s “good to see you” remarks during the May 11 hearing, saying that such instances strengthen his argument.

“We direly need judicial reforms here,” he stated.

Asked about the special court’s directives to present the ex-premier and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi before the court on Nov 28 in the cipher case, Bugti said he would follow the court orders to the letter.

The caretaker minister further said that most of the cases filed against PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif were baseless, but at the same time asserted that no favours were being given to the PML-N.

On the matter of deporting undocumented immigrants, Bugti said they were being sent back to their home country due to the lack of peace in Pakistan.

“This country is for Pakistanis; Pakistanis will live in it. Foreigners who want to live here should come in a legal manner. We will welcome them.

“If someone comes under a veil or by leaping over a wall, then we cannot give them the status of a guest,” the interior minister said.

Bugti stated that around 300,000 illegal immigrants had returned to their home country so far, of which more than 99 per cent are Afghan nationals.

When asked about the “failure” in dealing with the deadly clashes in Kurram district last month — that claimed over a dozen lives — Bugti said the word “failure is too big”.

The interior minister said there was no doubt that “hostile agencies in the fault lines of Pakistan” always tried to increase violence. “There is an attempt to increase fault lines,” he added.

Referring to the Jaranwala incident in August and unrest in Gilgit Baltistan in early September, Bugti said the “connections of conspiracies” in these places traced to “somewhere else”.

Expanding on the security situation in the country, Bugti talked about “planned” social media campaigns and said the country “basically needs a firewall that could regulate our media, especially social media”.

Responding to a question about Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar being summoned by the Islamabad High Court in a case pertaining to missing persons, the minister said it was “not appropriate if the court began summoning the premier on every other minor issue”.

The senator claimed that the number of missing persons in Pakistan was the “lowest in the region” and said it had become a “propaganda tactic against the country”.

Bugti further said that 78pc of the cases mentioned in the lists provided to him had been resolved.