Maryam ups the ante with call for banning PTI

PML-N leader demands Imran-led party be dealt with like a terrorist outfit

LAHORE:

Stepping up attacks on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) just weeks before the Punjab Assembly elections, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz demanded banning the Imran Khan-led party, equating it with a terrorist organisation.

Addressing a news conference, Maryam, who is also the PML-N chief organiser, once again opposed the provincial assembly elections, saying that national resources should not be wasted on the vote that had been forced by “one person”.

The senior PML-N leader drew parallels between the PTI and the outlawed terrorist outfits. She claimed that if the PTI was allowed to operate as a political party, questions would be raised about (her party’s) government at the Centre.

Her broadside against the arch-political rival came weeks before the elections of the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies. Punjab will go to polls on April 30, while the K-P vote has been set for May 28.

“Why should elections be held first in Punjab and then in K-P and then for the National Assembly?” she posed a question. Still, she insisted that her party was ready for the election battle.

Referring to the violence at Zaman Park earlier this week, when the PTI workers prevented the police from arresting Imran, the PML-N leader said it was an act of insurrection.

“Politicians stand for a cause. But to save his own skin and to avoid courts, Imran attacked the state,” she said. “This has been going on since 2014,” she added, referring to attacks on the PTV and parliament during the PTI’s sit-in in the federal capital.

“Imran Khan launched a similar attack on the country’s economy in 2018 when he laid ‘landmines’,” she said about the economic policy of the then PTI government. “Imran Khan is responsible for the economic down turn in the country,” she added.

“Imran Khan is giving interviews to the foreign media and spreading lies about the government. He claims the government wants to send him to Balochistan, it’s a lie, the government only wants him to attend the court hearings,” she continued.

“I would advise the government against arresting Imran Khan. If he gives an undertaking that he will attend all of the court hearings, the government should wait till he is convicted in the slew of cases against him.”

She charged that Imran was disseminating his message to his workers from his Zaman Park residence the same way terrorists used to spread their propaganda-laden messages during the days of operations Raddul Fasaad and Zarb-e-Azab.

She alleged that Imran used K-P police during his long marches, while currently, he was using Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) police against the Punjab police at Zaman Park. She alleged that “even terrorists were kept at Zaman Park” to attack the state.

“All these are the hallmarks of a proscribed group, and not a political party. Imran Khan’s agenda is to bring instability and destruction to Pakistan. Imran Khan only wants power to misuse the state resources.”

Had the authorities wanted to arrest Imran, the PML-N chief organiser said, it would have been done in five minutes, adding that however the police backed off because of the concern for the people there.

Besides, she continued, Imran got off scot-free because of his facilitators. “Imran should be dealt with like a militant party,” she added. “If it [the PTI] is not dealt with like one, questions would be raised about this government.”

She also fired a broadside at former chief justices of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa for their rulings against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and in favour of Imran Khan in 2017.

The PML-N senior vice president also took a jibe at the Lahore High Court (LHC), asking the question, if any other party leader had violated the law the way Imran did, would their arrest warrant be cancelled, too.

She also took exception to former US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad over his recent statement on Twitter in which Khalilzad had advised the government against arresting Imran Khan.

“Who gave Zalmay Khalilzad the right to speak about internal matters of Pakistan,” she said. However, she asked the former US envoy to tell what should happen to a person, who used force to evade the law.

When asked about former army chief Gen (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa and former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt-Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed, she said that the relevant institution should take those, who brought any disrepute, to task.

When pointed out that a recent survey showed the ever-increasing popularity of the PTI, Maryam said that she did not pay any heed to, what she described as, the fictitious surveys.

To a question about the return of Nawaz Sharif who is currently in London, Maryam claimed that the PML-N supremo would come back soon.