Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shahram Tarakai has said that his party is willing to engage in dialogue, but only after they are allowed to meet Imran Khan.
Speaking to Pakistani media, Tarakai remarked that when oppression crosses all limits, it takes a different form. “If Sohail Afridi is stopped, another Sohail Afridi will rise,” he warned, emphasizing that attempts to suppress voices would only intensify resistance.
He claimed that “a single jail superintendent is overshadowing the entire government,” adding that meaningful dialogue is only possible when a suitable environment is created.
During the same programme, federal minister Musadik Malik responded by saying that any meeting should take place strictly under legal procedures. He questioned whether Imran Khan was facing the harsh treatment once experienced by Rana Sanaullah in prison. “Oppression should only be as much as one can endure,” he remarked.
Malik also asked why PTI members continued to take salaries if they believed that working under current conditions was impossible. “Solutions come through dialogue. You even lost the election in your own province,” he said.
Tarakai, however, acknowledged that injustices in the past — including incidents during PTI’s own tenure — were wrong. “Whatever happened to Rana Sanaullah was wrong. Wrong is wrong. Today the nation is suffering from inflation, unemployment and insecurity,” he added.
He stressed that without political stability, economic stability cannot be achieved. According to him, the country’s economic and law-and-order situation is directly tied to political conditions. “Whether we did it or they did it, suppressing the opposition has become a habit of every government,” he concluded.
