Pak Home Minister rejects rumours about conspiracy in the country

Pakistan’s Home minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan rejected rumours about an in-house conspiracy in the army and said there is no room for success of such a plot within the disciplined and professional force. Last week, a politician had given rise to the rumour when, during a talk show on a television channel, he said that Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was in contact with the country’s prime intelligence agency ISI during its long-drawn ‘dharna’ (sit-in) in Islamabad late last year. He said the ISI chief, Lieutenant General Zeheerul Islam, along with a few others, supported the protest, anticipating that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would take action against the army chief out of apprehension. Talking to reporters after inaugurating an online application system, the interior minister said rumours suggesting that a plot had been hatched up by some army officers to replace Army Chief General Raheel Sharif during the PTI’s sit-in in Islamabad last year, were ridiculous and baseless. He said the country was facing insurgency and the war against terrorists was the most difficult of wars which needed focus and unity in the nation. Khan said the Pakistan Army was the best fighting force in the world. Without naming the United States, he said there were armies of large countries which had to face a crushing defeat in guerrilla warfare, but the Pakistan Army was perhaps the only exception which had been facing successes in a very difficult guerrilla war against terrorism.