Rashid claims his Islamabad home raided again

RAWALPINDI:

Awami Muslim League (AML) chief and former federal minister Sheikh Rashid on Sunday accused the “elite forces”of  breaking into his residence in Islamabad at midnight as well as beating up his domestic staff and forcibly extracting statements from them -- the second time he had made such a claim.

Earlier, Rashid maintained that while he was out of the country, troops of the paramilitary force and Islamabad police had broken into his house in Islamabad's Sector F-7 in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

In a video statement shared on Sunday, the AML leader reported another similar incident.

He claimed that at midnight, the “elite forces broke into” his Islamabad residence and “tortured” his employees until they gave statements dismissing that they had been beaten up.

Rashid maintained that the police were resorting to all these actions because of the June 9 notice issued by Additional Sessions Judge Tahir Abbas Supra on his complaint.

“Forces dressed in white clothes indiscriminately tortured the domestic staff at my mother’s residence, the Lal Haveli, at 4am,” he claimed, adding that it was the neighbours who intervened and saved them from the “officials in plain clothes”.

He also said that the country was being governed under “the law of the jungle” where the citizens had been “disgraced and humiliated”.

“I have the right to take legal action. The tides of time will turn,” he continued.

The former federal minister predicted that the minus-plus formula would fail to achieve the desired results and only increase instability in the country.

Claiming that the coming 20 days were “significant”, Rashid maintained that the PML-N had disgraced itself.

He further said whether PML-N supremo and former premier Nawaz Sharif returned to the country or not, it would not make a difference in the political sphere.

In his unique style of speaking in riddles, the AML chief warned that an untoward incident could occur in September, in an indirect reference to the countrywide May 9 violence triggered by the arrest of PTI chairman and deposed premier Imran Khan from the premises of the Islamabad High Court by dozens of Rangers personnel in connection with a corruption case.

Several PTI leaders have quit the party following their ‘differences' over the May 9 mayhem when various public and private properties were destroyed, particularly the attacks on military installations.

However, Rashid, despite being not affiliated with the PTI, stood by his allied party in these testing times.

Taking a dig at the current PML-N-led government, the AML chief said that the economy would not revive by itself.

He pointed out that the country’s factories were closed because of the 50% hike in inflation.

He added that the country’s foreign reserves, remittances and exports were rapidly declining.

Rashid maintained that the prices of wheat and liquefied natural gas (LNG) had reduced by 100% across the globe. In comparison, he added that the prices of these products had witnessed a 100% increase in Pakistan.

He claimed that the country’s economy had been buried in the ground.