Opposition PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal has said not trying Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and current PM Imran Khan under Article 6 for allegedly attacking the parliament in 2014 was a 'mistake'.

“We should have filed a treason case against Imran Khan under Article 6 for attacking the parliament… but we could not, which was our mistake,” Iqbal told a presser in the party’s secretariat in Model Town as quoted by Dawn News.

When asked whether the Nawaz Sharif government in 2014 had weighed the option of registering a treason case against Khan, Ahsan said: “I was not privy to any such discussion then. However, we committed this mistake for the larger interest as we did not want to be accused of political victimisation.”

A party insider told Dawn that after the PTI’s alleged attack on the PTV and the parliament during its sit-in in Islamabad in 2014, the hawkish elements in the party had asked Mr Sharif to book Khan under Article 6 but he could not take a decision to the effect saying that it would not work as the ‘powers that be’ were with him (Khan), IBNS said. 

A Pakistani court last year had acquitted Prime Minister Imran Khan in the 2014 Parliament House attack case.(SAM)