“[I] don’t know how those who take bail in every case will be able to fill jails,” he said in response to Shaukat Piracha’s queries in the show Rubaroo on Sunday. “But, if they wish then they should do it. It is good that they will be trained to see what happens in prisons.”

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan in a televised address earlier in the day announced that his party would begin ‘Jail Bharo Tehreek’ after some of its leaders and allies were arrested. The call came after the arrests of Shehbaz Gill, Senator Azam Swati, Fawad Chaudhry, and Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rasheed. Imran had announced a similar movement in October that was aimed at forcing the government to hold elections but it did not pan out as planned.

Imran’s announcement had come days after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif invited his archrival to the All Parties Conference (APC) to discuss “important challenges” in the wake of the suicide bombing in Peshawar mosque that killed 102 people and wounded over 200 people.

Kaira, who is also the adviser to the PM on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan, said that his party leadership attended APCs when they were in jails. “For democratic tolerance, it is necessary to have a democratic attitude.”

He clarified that the government has no intention to arrest Imran Khan, however, the former prime minister could be arrested at some point, if required by the law.

The PPP leader went on to add that unfortunately, Imran was not following the same ideology of getting united on national security. “He [Imran] considers opposition as hostility,” Kaira said, adding that the cricketer-turned-politician did not even attend the APC during his own tenure.

So far, the PTI’s participation in the APC is unclear because the party thinks the government’s motives were not clear as on one hand, their party leaders were being arrested and on the other such invitations were being sent

“Decide what you want,” PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi said while criticizing the government. “You want unity or chaos? You want to sit together and find a way or achieve your political goals,” he said and reiterated the ruling government’s intentions were different.

When asked about the political vendetta in the PTI’s tenure, Qureshi said that most of the cases were related to the National Accountability Bureau. The cases against the PPP were established by the PML-N, and the cases against the PML-N were established during the tenure of the PPP. The nature of political cases is different then the nature of NAB cases, he claimed.