PTI leaders decry Rana Sanullah's comments as 'direct threat to Imran'.

PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry and other party leaders lambasted Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday for saying PTI chief Imran Khan was 'not a mere political rival' of the PML-N but an 'enemy' and that the hostilities between the two political parties had reached a point where only one of the two could survive.

In an interview with PNN News a day earlier, Sanaullah said: 'In my opinion, Imran Khan does not believe in democracy and democratic traditions. He does not believe in having a peaceful political environment in this country. He has turned politics into enmity.

'He considers us his enemies while we [previously] used to think of him as our political rival, but with time it has come to a point where [we also think] that he is our enemy,' the minister said.

'Democratic traditions, timely elections, and rights and wrongs are a part of democracy and politics but not during an enmity,' the interior minister added. 'He (Imran) says that we want to murder him so if [he says] we want to murder him, then he also wants to murder us.

'Either he or us will get murdered. He has now taken the country's politics to a point where only one of the two can remain.'

Sanaullah said that if his party's entire existence was in jeopardy, then they would go to any length, explaining that in those circumstances it would become irrelevant to think 'what can or cannot be done, if something is democratic or not, if something is principled or not.'

When the interviewer pointed out that such remarks could result in anarchy, Sanaullah said: 'Anarchy already prevails. What else is there to anarchy.'

When asked if there was a way out and whether Imran's arrest could ease the hostilities, the interior minister said the matter had escalated to a point of no return. 'Either their...