ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) senior leader and lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan has assailed PM Abbasi for “becoming part of the abusive campaign” against state institutions launched by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif since disqualification. Talking to the media outside Islamabad High Court on Tuesday, the PPP senator said that the PML-N had become an ‘abusive brigade’ under Nawaz’s leadership. He said that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, otherwise an agreeable person, has also become part of that deplorable campaign. He remarked that Nawaz and Maryam had done away with their ‘relatives’, of which, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was one. He advised the PM not to become party to the Nawaz’s efforts to malign state institutions, which he has sworn to protect. Aitzaz Ahsan also referred to Indian Supreme Court’s recent question regarding whether a thief could become political party head. He said that neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi protested against SC’s statement. “In Pakistan, say the word ‘thief’ and Maryam will think you’re talking about her father,” he said, “That only means a guilty conscience needs no accuser.” Published in Daily Times, February 21st 2018.