PML-N leader Ishaq Dar on Saturday said Prime Imran Khan personified fascism, as he blasted the PTI government over restricting basic freedoms and political victimisation of opposition leaders.

The former finance minister, who led the economic team during the last tenure of PML-N supremo Nawaz as prime minister, was mocking the prime minister for his yesterday’s speech in which he had claimed that “I am democracy”.

“What a sham democracy,” he remarked, in which human rights are grossly violated and media is gagged.

Dar, in his tweet, also mentioned abuse of government departments and political victimisation of opponents which, he added, at its peak.

“Mr Imran Niazi, you personify fascism, not a democracy,” said the PML-N leader in latest jibe at the prime minister amid the rising political temperature since the opposition formed Pakistan Democratic Movement in a bid to oust the PTI government through rallies and protest. 

In the same speech, Imran had warned that the opposition leaders would be imprisoned if they violated any law during their upcoming rallies and protest.

On the other hand, Ahsan Iqbal – PML-N secretary-general – said the PTI government was seemingly the biggest asset of the “hybrid war”.

“Imran Khan Niazi’s government has disappointed four out of every five people and they think that the country is moving in the wrong direction,” Ahsan said in a tweet.

He was commenting on a statement by Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa who said in a speech that the “hybrid war” was aimed at damaging the atmosphere of hope in Pakistan. 

Separately, Ahsan, addressing Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, said that the military’s job was to defend the country and the advisers like him made the national institutions controversial.

Earlier in the day, Sheikh had stated that the army was the country’s democracy, economy and stability.