Daily Times

MANSEHRA: “The people’s courts are ruling in favour of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif one after the other. Nawaz Sharif’s case will be decided by the court of the people,” PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz Sharif said on Friday.

She was addressing a convention of her party’s social media activists in Mansehra.

Maryam said the public had turned down Supreme Court’s verdict in the Panama Papers case.

“If Chief Justice talks using PTI’s tone, he will be responded to in the same tone,” she said, adding that during the Panama Papers case, Nawaz Sharif was compared to criminals. “How can someone compare the people’s representative with criminals,” she asked.

Maryam further said that holding Nawaz in contempt of court was akin to the contempt of all those who had voted him into power.

She said the public’s trust in the judicial system had diminished because of such rulings.

Referring to the National Accountability Bureau’s request to place Nawaz on the Exit Control List (ECL), Maryam said he was not the kind of man who would run away from hardships. “Our ancestors are buried here. We will also live and die here,” she said.

“What constitutional principal allows any to call an elected representative of the people a plunderer?” she asked.

Earlier, when she reached Mansehra to address the convention, a large crowd of supporters welcomed her to the venue.

The convention was organised at the residence of local PML-N leader. After addressing the convention, Maryam Nawaz held meetings with PML-N leaders from different areas of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

PML-N leader Sardar Aurangzeb said the aim of the convention was to applaud the efforts of the PML-N social media wing in Mansehra and to devise a social media strategy for the future. He said activists from all over the province had come to Mansehra to participate in the gathering.

Aurangzeb praised the work of the social media team saying that the able leadership of Qazi Atif Sohrab had enabled the team to work as a cohesive unit. “Certain anti-Pakistan elements are spreading negative propaganda against the country on social media and it is our responsibility to counter it,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, February 17^th 2018.