NEW YORK, Aug 25: More than 10,000 Pakistanis attended the Pakistan Day parade on Sunday in New York which was marred by incidents of political bickering.

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) President Shahbaz Sharif and Senate Chairman Mohammadmian Soomro shared the honours as Grand Marshals of the parade in which New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also participated.

Mr Sharif who arrived late at the parade was jeered and cheered by the large crowd who shouted slogans like “Go Sharif go,” and “Sharif Murdabad”.

According to eyewitnesses, the pro-Sharif group clashed with the anti-Sharif group and one person was reportedly arrested after he slapped an anti-Sharif demonstrator.

Although there were reports that the Sharif group had given substantial amount of money to the organizers to make the PML president the Grand Marshal of the parade, but Shahbaz Sharif denied the reports, saying that “they were malicious and I would not participate in any such parade if money was demanded of me.”

As for the slogans raised against him at the parade, he said “it looked as though they were hired hands out to disrupt the proceedings which were meant to celebrate the Pakistan Day”.

Later, speaking to Pakistanis, Shahbaz Sharif said he would spend his life serving Pakistan and said he understood sentiments of the people who were shouting slogans against him and accepted that “politicians are also corrupt as are the military rulers”.

He held the Pakistan army and four martial law regimes responsible for creating a political mess in the country. He said the army originally came into power to end corruption, but ended up breaking the country.

On the occasion, Mohammadmian Soomro praised the expatriates and said he felt like he was at home.

Senator Charles Schumer assured Pakistanis that he would help to combat the discriminatory laws that badly impacted them after the Sept 11.