ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Attaullah Tarar lambasted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan on Wednesday for “orchestrating” cipher drama for personal gain, alleging that the party engaged a lobbying agency for the Congress hearing.
The minister’s comments came after Donald Lu, the State Department’s senior officer for South and Central Asia, told a congressional hearing that the claims against him for plotting a conspiracy were false.
“These charges, this conspiracy theory, are a falsehood. It is a total lie,” Lu said while appearing before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee investigating Pakistan’s democracy and relations with the United States.
He also encouraged Pakistani authorities to investigate any irregularities in last month’s general election and re-run the vote in impacted constituencies if found.
In reaction to the US diplomat’s statements, Tarar stated that the PTI chairman’s deception and hypocrisy were revealed before the entire world today when Donald Lu appeared before Congress and termed the cipher a complete lie.
The federal information minister strongly condemned the PTI’s conspiracy, blaming the party for their anti-state actions, including the May 9 riots and protests outside the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters, for derailing Pakistan’s talks with the lender on the final review of the standby agreement.
“The PTI engaged lobbyists in the United States for a congress hearing on the so-called regime change scheme, but their leader could not dodge divine justice,” he remarked, using a saying “man proposes, God disposes”.
