LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Saturday that certain forces were out to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif through non-political and undemocratic means.

“There are forces who have always tried to remove popular leaders using non-political and undemocratic means, from Zulfikar AIi Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif,” he observed while speaking to reporters.

The minister cautioned that the removal of a leader through judicial rulings had never been and would not be accepted by the masses.

Mr Sanaullah’s statement comes at a time when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court is probing the Panamagate case against PM Sharif.

“Notwithstanding the so-called hijacking and treason cases against Nawaz Sharif, the masses elected him prime minister for the third term when they got a chance after 11 years,” he said.

Referring to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s 2014 sit-in, the minister said that it wasn’t as much about alleged rigging in the polls as it had been about overthrowing an elected government. He said PTI chief Imran Khan’s statement about the third umpire was proof of that.

When asked to name the ‘forces’ behind the sit-in, he said former PTI president Javed Hashmi had done that already.

Mr Hashmi has recently alleged that the PTI had been assured of a ‘judicial martial law’ if the party activists managed to occupy the Parliament House and prime minister’s offices during the sit-in.

Mr Sanaullah claimed that Mr Khan and Sheikh Rashid were trying to implement the agenda of failed Nov 2, 2016 Islamabad lockdown through the apex court hearing in the Panamagate case. However, he declared, the judiciary would provide justice and foil their attempts “to pressure the courts”.

In response to a query about military courts, the minister said all political quarters in the country were in agreement that military courts were an unusual response to an unusual situation. As a permanent solution to such crises in future, he said, Punjab wished to strengthen the civil judicial system and had drafted a plan in this respect which would be presented when the federal government agreed to the suggestion.

Yet despite his views on military courts, he insisted, he would abide by his leaders’ decision on the matter of their extension and play a role in creating a national consensus around it.

Discussing the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Jan 19 Lahore-to-Faisalabad rally, Mr Sanaullah, who is also a former PPP leader, said he had seen jiyalas on the streets for the first time in several years. He lauded the PPP in this regard and said this was the result of the hard work by the party leadership.

He said the government had provided foolproof security to the rally even though the PPP leaders had spoken ill of the PML-N at the Faislabad public meeting instead acknowledging the facilitation.

Published in Dawn January 22nd, 2017