Time for puppet Imran Khan to go, Bilawal Bhutto tells Pak Army

Pakistan's Opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday warned the country's powerful military establishment to send its 'selected' Prime Minister Imran Khan 'home' by January or face massive protests.

Bilawal, 31, said the government can arrest political workers, censor the media but can't hide its incompetence of "epic proportions" that has wreaked havoc on the country's economy, foreign policy and the federation.

"Time for puppets to go. Either selectors and allies act now or by the new year, the people will kick all puppets out," Bilawal said in a tweet.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party will never compromise the democratic, human, and economic rights of the people.

Bilawal in March also had called Khan a puppet.

Talking to reporters early in the day, Bilawal said, "Those who brought this highly incompetent prime minister, better remove him by January next, otherwise the PPP workers will gather in huge numbers in Rawalpindi where the founder of PPP and former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged, former premier Benzir Bhutto was assassinated and the PPP's incumbent leadership (including former president Asif Ali Zardari) was imprisoned," he said.

The general headquarters of the Pakistan army is in Rawalpindi.

Meanwhile, the PPP has asked the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) to convene a multi-party conference to discuss the possibility of launching a full-fledged, anti-government protest campaign under the joint opposition platform.

Another mainstream opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) has decided in principle to join the "Azadi March" of JUI-F. The date of the protest has not been finalised.

A PML-N leader, who did not wish to be named, said in a recent meeting in jail former prime minister Nawaz Sharif told the PML-N president and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif to get the entire party behind the protest and also contact the PPP in this regard.

Sharif, 69, has been serving a seven-year prison term at the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore since December 24, 2018 when the accountability court convicted him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills graft case.

Earlier, president of JUI-F Maulana Fazlhad had warned the Pakistani prime minister to step down by August 31.