Imran Khan (front 2R) waves to supporters during a protest rally against the inflation and political destabilisation in Rawalpindi on Saturday night. AFP

Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has said that the message from people to the "institutions” (Pakistan army) is that there is still time to save the country from these looters, lest the game gets out of hand.

Addressing a public meeting at the Parade Ground Islamabad on Saturday night, Imran called on the nation to be ready for the Punjab by-elections, as the rulers have made full preparations to rig them and had the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with their side as well as police.

"The nation calls them thieves and traitors wherever they go and umpires are also on their side. Despite the umpires the nation is not with them and we will have to defeat them. None can stop Naya Pakistan,” Imran asserted, as PTI supporters kept chanting slogans and waving the national and their party flags.

He asked the institutions as to how they had allowed the tyrants to be imposed on the nation and said Allah Almighty would ask the judges had they established the rule of law and ensured justice and protected the weak against powerful crooks. He said had they taken suo moto action against those who had looted the country and then given themselves the NRO.

Allah Almighty, he continued, would also ask the neutrals the power rests with you, then how you imposed these thieves on the country. He said Islam asks us to side with goodness and Allah does not allow us to be neutral when it comes to deciding between good and evil.”

The former premier said these thieves are out to destroy the morals of society as well, by doing away with the distinction between the good and bad.

"I ask the institutions when you install thieves on the national treasury, the country is destroyed. They have nothing to do with inflation. They came to power to pardon themselves and give themselves NRO-2 and do away with their corruption cases. Had not the Supreme Court taken a suo moto notice the way they enacted amendments to the NAB law, they would have buried it.”

He emphasised a strong army was the need of the country. He also regretted how the police and Rangers had resorted to violence against women and families on May 25. "Had they not unleashed shelling and baton charge on people and raided their houses, a sea of people like the one today would have come. People were furious about the police and Rangers and had I opted for a sit-in that day, the country would have slipped into anarchy, which I would never want, as my life and death is linked with Pakistan unlike the corrupt rulers,” he said.

Imran clarified that the entire police were not tyrant. He said what he had wanted that day was to send a clear message to all that the nation had put aside fear and would never accept the imported government of looters. "The nation has neither accepted the US conspiracy nor these dacoits. Today, the nation is agitating here, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Lahore, Multan and Karachi,” he said. He made it clear he had not come out against the institutions but the corrupt rulers who had their wealth, property and families abroad.

During his speech, various video clips of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders were shown on a large screen as to how they had been accusing each other of being corrupt and had now joined hands to save their looted money. He put a question to the rulers as to who had put the economy on ventilator. Were not you, two families, who ruled the country for 30 years?