LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) President and former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and senior central leader and former deputy prime minister Ch Pervaiz Elahi have said that the army foiled Nawaz Sharif’s plan for a civil war. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s crucial role as arbitrator is being praised across the country for breaking a three-week-long stalemate between the government and protesters at the capital city’s Faizabad Interchange, they said in a joint statement. “Conspiracy of puppet government of Nawaz Sharif was that in the name of establishing the writ of the government the army be involved in the operation against sit-in and made controversial but Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa proved too wise and kept the army out of this sensitive dispute,” the PML-Q leaders said. “If, God forbid, the army had also become controversial on being involved in this dispute then conspiracy to destabilise Pakistan could have succeeded,” they said. The PML-Q leaders said now that the army on the request of the government had got jotted down an agreement in writing with the protesting leaders, the government should also not show any further ‘cleverness’ and instead abide by the written agreement. They urged the rulers to pinpoint the culprit – who changed the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat declaration – within the fixed time and make him an example so that nobody dared touch the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat law in the future. Published in Daily Times, November 28th 2017.