Daily Times

The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Friday traded barbs as the Lower House witnessed uproar over arrest of Maryam Nawaz.

The ruckus in National Assembly began when PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif raised the issue of Maryam Nawaz’s arrest and warned the government against political victimisation of its opponents. He said the PTI and NAB will not be able to force the Sharif family into submission. He lamented that a daughter was arrested before her father. He said earlier Nawaz Sharif and his daughter were arrested when they had left ailing Kulsoom Nawaz in London to surrender before the law. He said the history was repeated once again when Maryam Nawaz was arrested before her father in jail.

The PML-N president termed Maryam Nawaz’s arrest a ‘distraction tactic’ as he accused the government of resorting to such measures in an attempt to hide its ‘failed’ policy on the Kashmir dispute. “Hamza Shehbaz and Maryam Nawaz’s arrests prove once again that the PTI government is complicit with NAB,” Shehbaz said, amid uproar from the MNAs in attendance. “Imran Khan is mistaken if he thinks he can pressure us with such cruel tactics. They are pushing us against the wall,” he said. Slamming the accountability watchdog, Shehbaz questioned NAB’s lack of action on the delayed Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit project. “Rs70 billion were wasted on Peshawar BRT, but where is the accountability? PTI, NAB are complicit,” he alleged.

Shehbaz’s speech was interrupted by sloganeering from the treasury and opposition benches, which irked Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri, who was presiding over the proceedings. When an opposition member claimed that a ‘term banned by the speaker was affecting him’, Suri responded, “Nothing is affecting me. The prime minister of this House is elected, just like the opposition leader is elected.”

Suri was referring to the word ‘selected’ that was repeatedly used by the opposition for Prime Minister Imran Khan until National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser ordered that the will be expunged from records and banned its usage.

Reacting to Shehbaz Sharif’s speech, PTI leader and Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood advised PML-N leaders to better prove their innocence in corruption cases. He said the PML-N representatives should defend themselves in court regarding their looted money. “They (PML-N members) are using parliament to conceal their wrongdoings,” he said.

Shafqat Mehmood said Sharif family has been involved in money laundering and that it bought four of its flats in London with the embezzled money. He claimed that shares of Maryam Nawaz in a sugar mill were brought with telegraphic transfers.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan also lashed out at the opposition, specifically PML-N, calling them out on inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a personal guest to their grand-daughter’s wedding. Speaking in the House, Khan said that those levying blame on the present government for Kashmir issue had close and personal ties with the Indian prime minister who has been waging the most brutal genocide in the occupied valley.

The minister also expressed his concerns over what was transpiring in Indian-held Kashmir and said that the Pakistani nation stands with the innocent people of Kashmir in these trying times and are ready to answer any aggression from India towards the sovereignty of Pakistan. Khan also said that at a critical time when the country should be united under the cause of Kashmir, the assembly stands in disarray which is troublesome and a cause of concern.

Former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, meanwhile, said the government should put aside its differences with the opposition and adopt a united stance in the face of the ongoing Kashmir crisis.

The House has now been prorogued.