RAWALPINDI: After his release from Adiala Jail on Wednesday on completing one-month sentence over contempt of court, Nehal Hashmi, former senator of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, again targeted the judiciary, complaining that his “appeal against conviction is still pending when he has already completed his sentence”.

“Has this upheld the rule of law or was it an act of vengeance?” asked Mr Hashmi while talking to reporters outside the jail amidst sloganeering by his supporters and the PML-N workers, who had gathered to receive him.

The party workers also raised slogans in support of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and showered rose petals on Mr Hashmi.

Mr Hashmi said that he had filed the intra-court app­eal against his conviction soon after the bench senten­ced him for committing contempt of court, but regretted that the appeal was not taken up by the court.

“It was my right that my appeal should have been entertained,” he added.

The PML-N leader refuted the charges that he had committed any contempt of the court and alleged that he had been made a victim of the “revenge.”

In his apparent reference to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, he said he had not named Baba Rahmatay in his speech for which he was convicted.

“This is height of oppression,” charged the PML-N leader, declaring that he was not afraid of anybody and was ready to be sent to jail again or to be shot dead.

Nehal Hashmi had been sentenced to one-month imprisonment and a fine of Rs50,000 and also barred from holding public office for five years by the Supreme Court in a contempt of court case on February 1.

The SC had taken notice of his speech at a gathering in Karachi last year in which he had hurled threats to the members of the joint investigation team that had been constituted by on the orders of the apex court to probe charges against the Sharif family members in Panama Papers scam.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2018