ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has called for resignation of Prime Minister Shahid Khagan Abbasi and Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal for what he called mishandling the Faizabad situation and bringing the country to the brink of disaster.

The PTI chief also reiterated his demand for immediate resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid.

`Chairman PTI, Imran Khan, today called for the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Abbasi and Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, but the law minister should also have taken responsibility (for his role in the amendment to the Khatm-i-Nubuwat oath in the Elections Act 2017) and resigned much earlier,` a statement issued by the party on Sunday said.

`It is time that the Sharifs` puppet prime minister, along with the interior minister, resign at once as they have totally mishandled a situation that could have been dealt with in a timely and prudent manner.` The government`s stated position was that they would make public the Zafarul Haq Committee report on the amendment controversy and punish the guilty, Mr Khan said. This was also demanded by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, he added.

`By backtracking on this position and allowing the highly sensitive issue to fester and then conducting an operation that ended in a disaster and led to violence spreading across the country, the prime minister and the interior minister have brought the country to a dangerous brink, he said.

Alluding to the aftermath of the botched operation against the Fiazabad protesters, the PTI leader said death and destruction had been spread throughout the country with people being killed, hundreds injured and public and private properties destroyed.

`By not exposing those responsible (for the fiasco), the government has also raised suspicions that there is something sinister to hide,` he said, adding `the question that has now arisen is whether the Khatm-i-Nabuwat issue was deliberately created and allowed to linger on in order to play to another powerful lobby cultivated by international forces`.

`It is apparent that the present government is obsessed with saving the Sharif mafia and their corruption even if it means destabilising the country and undermining its democratic structures,` Mr Khan said.

However, `this cannot be allowed to continue. To save democracy and restore peace and stability, the PTI demands immediate resignation of the prime minister and the interior minister as well as early elections.