Daily Times

Sir: Whether or not the top leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is corrupt does not matter. It is still not an offense to be a PML-N worker or to support the PML-N. Why then have 378 people been arrested from Lahore in the run-up to Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam’s return from the UK?

Not only have PML-N supporters been arrested, the whole city is practically in lockdown. The ring road has been blockaded, as have all roads leading to the Lahore airport. These are only the blockades I have seen with my own two eyes. According to Google Maps, numerous other roads have been blocked as well. I would like to point out that I myself am not a PML-N supporter. I detested Nawaz Sharif’s politics in the 1990’s when he wanted to turn Pakistan into an Islamic State. I continued to hate Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif’s ‘development’ projects when the PML-N was elected to power in 2013. Frankly, I believe legal action should have been taken against Nawaz when his convoy ran over and killed a young boy in 2017. Instead, Nawaz had the gall to call the victim a “martyr of the PML-N”.

It also needs to be pointed out that the current tactics being used against the PML-N have been used by the PML-N against its own opponents.Now the PML-N calls these actions illegal, while PTI Chief Imran Khan has nothing to say about them, even though he was very vocal about the people’s right to assembly when container trucks were used to stop his dharnas. Everyone involved in this fiasco seems to be a hypocrite.

Shahid Faisal

Lahore

Published in Daily Times, July 14^th 2018.