The military on Monday warned the PTI chairman of legal action over "mala fide statements and propaganda" and advised him to "make a recourse to legal avenues" soon after Imran Khan once again accused a senior intelligence official of his involvement in the plot to assassinate the former prime minister.
In a statement issued in response to a series of tweets posted by Khan wherein he lashed out at the government and the military, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) asked him to refrain from making accusations without evidence.
The army termed Khan's allegations against the ISI's senior official "irresponsible and baseless".
The statement said: "Chairman PTI has levelled highly irresponsible and baseless allegations against a serving senior military officer without any evidence. These fabricated and malicious allegations are extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable."
The military's media wing pointed out that his recent tweet was part of "sensational" and "consistent" propaganda.
The statement said, "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."
The military hinted at taking legal action, as the statement warned: "We ask the political leader concerned to make a recourse to legal avenues and stop making false allegations. The institution reserves the right to take legal course of action against patently false and mala fide statements and propaganda."
Khan on May 3, while appearing in the Islamabad High Court, told reporters that a senior official — often dubbed by him as 'Dirty Harry' — of the premier spy agency had "planned to assassinate him twice".
The scathing allegations by the former premier against the apex intelligence agency came in response to a statement by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wherein he accused the PTI chairman of maligning the military for personal gains.
"Imran Niazi's act of routinely maligning and threatening Pakistan Army and intelligence agency for the sake of petty political gains is highly condemnable. His levelling of allegations without any proof against Gen Faisal Naseer and officers of our intelligence agency cannot be allowed and will not be tolerated," the prime minister tweeted.
Shortly after the tweet, the PTI chairman in a tirade on Twitter accused the intelligence agency and its officials of planning to murder him.
"Have I, a citizen, the right to nominate those I feel were responsible for assassination attacks on me? Why was I denied my legal & Constitutional right to register an FIR," said Khan as he claimed to have "suffered two assassination attempts on his life in last few months".
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