PML-Q seeks recovery of its 'hostage' MPAs

The Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) has requested the Lahore High Court (LHC) to recover its lawmakers allegedly being kept hostage in a hotel.

PML-Q Punjab general secretary Kamil Ali Agha filed the petition through Advocate Amir Saeed Rawn with an additional prayer to implead the party as a respondent in petitions filed by PML-N leader Hamza Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Assembly Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari.

The petitioner alleged that Hamza Shehbaz and other leaders were trying to change the loyalties of the provincial assembly members in violation of the Constitution and fundamental rights of the applicant.

He alleged that the opposition leader had made some PML-Q members hostage in a hotel and they were not being allowed to meet anyone.

He submitted that a writ petition had been filed in the LHC without impleading the PML-Q as a party.

The petitioner requested the court to recover PML-Q members from PML-N’s custody.

Hamza Shehbaz had filed a petition in the LHC, seeking election of the chief minister with a request to declare intervening acts of Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi as illegal.

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Deputy Speaker Mazari had approached the court over being deprived of the powers of acting speaker.

Meanwhile, PML-N Punjab spokesperson Azma Bukhari claimed in a statement that the PMML-Q and PTI legislators had voluntarily decided to join the opposition without any greed. She said they had also decided to stay together till the voting day.

A majority of members of Punjab Assembly belonging to the PML-N and some from the coalition partners had reportedly been staying in a hotel in Gulberg since April 3.

PTI supporters held protests outside the hotel to denounce ‘horse trading’.

The MPAs were later shifted to a hotel in the cantonment area, where around 150 rooms were booked for them.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2022.