ISPR deplores Imran Khan's "malicious allegations against a senior military officer"

RAWALPINDI – The country's army has slammed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Monday for making "irresponsible and baseless allegations" against a senior military official.

"[The] chairman of the PTI has made highly irresponsible and baseless allegations against a serving senior military officer without providing any evidence," Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a statement today.

Over the past weekend, the former prime minister had claimed that a senior military officer, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah were behind an assassination attempt on him on November 3, 2022, but he has provided no evidence to authorities so far, and all of those accused have denied the allegations.

"These fabricated and malicious allegations are extremely unfortunate, deplorable, and unacceptably unacceptable," stated the spokesman.

The military’s spokesperson, in the statement, also noted that a pattern has been witnessed over the last year, wherein, the army personnel are targetted for one’s political motives.

“This has been a consistent pattern for [the] last one year wherein military and intelligence agencies officials are targeted with insinuations and sensational propaganda for the furtherance of political objectives.”

He added that politicos should refrain from making baseless allegations and warned that if such a trend were to continue, the army had the right to take legal action.

“We ask the political leader concerned to make recourse to legal avenues and stop making false allegations. The institution reserves the right to take legal course of action against patently false and malafide statements and propaganda.”