Daily Times

As police filed a first information report (FIR) against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leadership charging them with terrorism, inciting violence and attempted murder during its rally held to accord welcome to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz upon their arrival from London, former Punjab chief minister and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday announced that they would turn every election campaign rally of the party into a protest demonstration against the treatment meted out to father-daughter duo.

Addressing a press conference here, Shehbaz criticised the measures taken by the caretaker government for the arrest of Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz. “Will soon give a call for peaceful protest in the country. Workers will protest wearing black armbands,” he announced, adding that by taking a legal discourse, the PML-N will defend its leader and his daughter.

With reference to the sentence given to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz in Avenfield properties case, Shehbaz said the trial of terrorists, not political leaders, is carried out in jails. “I have heard Nawaz and Maryam’s trial will be held in Adiala jail . this is tantamount to disgracing the sanctity of justice,” he said.

The PML-N leader said that in 1999 when former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had made a plane hijacking case against Nawaz, even then the trial was not held in jail.

While referring to the father-daughter duo’s arrival on Friday, Shehbaz said that the people came out to welcome their leader out of their own accord, adding that the leadership ‘had promised a peaceful rally’. “Police used tear gas and baton-charged our workers in the rally,” he claimed. Earlier in the day, at least 12 cases against PML-N workers and leaders including party president Shehbaz Sharif were registered at different police stations of Lahore. The interim Punjab government had imposed Section 144, a law concerning the maintenance of public order, in the provincial capital ahead of Nawaz and his daughter’s arrival. Among the PML-N leaders named in the cases are: Javed Hashmi, Uzma Bukhari, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Mubashir Javed, Raja Zafarul Haq and Mushahid Hussain.

Published in Daily Times, July 15^th 2018.