Maryam criticises SC’s decision to let Imran off the hook

Information minister says PTI will soon be banned over 'funding from Hindu and Jewish lobby'

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Maryam Nawaz has criticised the Supreme Court’s decision to let Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan off the hook in the disqualification case, saying biasness of those demanding accountability has been exposed.

“It proves that Iqama was just a smokescreen, while the real reason was to target Sharif,” she tweeted in Urdu while comparing Friday’s judgment of the apex court with the one that resulted in her father’s ouster.

She accused the apex court of adopting double standards as “Khan was not disqualified for hiding his offshore company, but Sharif was sent home for not declaring an unclaimed salary” in the nomination papers for the 2013 elections.

Maryam said, “Today’s decision vindicates the notion that Sharif was unjustly sent home.”

“There is not a shadow of doubt that the target of conspiracies, sit-ins and revenge-driven accountability was Nawaz Sharif as he is the true representative of the people,” she said in another tweet.



Meanwhile, expressing serious reservations over the SC decision, Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the ruling raises more questions than it answers.

"Today's verdict of the Supreme Court will have serious repercussions. Justice can't be served with such double standards," she said in a formal reaction to the apex court's much-awaited ruling.

PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi had filed two petitions against Khan and PTI Secretary General Jahangir Khan Tareen for concealing assets and offshore properties in their nomination papers filed with the Election Commission of Pakistan. Terming Khan honest, the apex court dismissed the plea against him, but declared Tareen dishonest and disqualified him as member of the National Assembly.

Addressing reporters outside the apex court, the minister claimed that different parameters of justice were applied to the Panamagate case and petitions against Khan and Tareen.

However, she said, “The PML-N is not shocked by the decision.”

She added that questions would certainly be asked if such double standards were applied to dispensation of justice.

"An elected prime minister [Nawaz Sharif] was sent home over a peculiar Iqama issue while a person [Khan] who abused institutions was granted reprieve," she said, defending the PML-N’s constitutional right to express its reservations over the court’s decision.

Lashing out at the PTI, Marriyum said the party was being funded by Jews and other foreign actors, who financed the sit-ins and protests to destabilise the political system of Pakistan.

"Today, the ATM [automated teller machine] funding all the sit-ins has shut down," she said, referring to Tareen's financial support for the PTI. "We have serious reservations over the Jews and Indians funding the PTI, which is illegal and has not been declared by the PTI chief."

Despite the court’s ruling, the minister predicted that the entire PTI would be banned in the foreign funding case.

On Tareen’s disqualification, the minister was of the view that the person who was raising hue and cry against the PML-N leadership had “now been caught red-handed”.