LAHORE: Breaking silence on his elder brother’s ‘ordeal’, newly-elected PML-N interim chief Shahbaz Sharif has said that Nawaz Sharif is being victimised and one day he will get justice.

Since the Supreme Court struck down a controversial amendment to the Elections Act 2017 that allowed Nawaz Sharif to resume party leadership after being disqualified in the Panama Papers case on Feb 22, Shahbaz Sharif had not publicly said a word either against the verdict or expressed solidarity with him (Nawaz).

Although Shahbaz held a maiden press conference in Model Town here on Thursday in response to corruption allegations against him by PTI chairman Imran Khan he empathised with his elder brother in reply to a question. “Nawaz Sharif is being victimised. He will get justice one day,” he said and asked as to why the NAB and FIA were not investigating the offshore companies revealed in the Panama Papers as billions of rupees were parked out of the country.

“There should not be politics in the name of accountability,” he said.

Empathises with Nawaz, saying he is being victimised

Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in the Panama Papers case in July last year that revealed his children had offshore holdings. Unlike his elder brother, Shahbaz Sharif remains careful in taking on judiciary with regard to its verdicts against the former.

After becoming PML-N head, he is being asked about following the ‘aggressive’ narrative of the party Quaid (Nawaz).

Maryam Nawaz too was asked on twitter to whom now she would follow - her father or uncle - she said: “I will follow my heart and say what I think is right. I speak my mind. Always have, always will.”

Shahbaz in the presser also maintained the party’s narrative that it was being punished for ending loadshedding and other development projects.

Expressing his frustration over a series of corruption allegations against him by the PTI head, the chief minister said: “I am sick of replying one after another false allegations of Niazi sahib. I ask him to put up or shut up. I request the chief justice of Pakistan to form a full bench to hear these allegations so that this trend should be stopped once and for all.

“I propose clubbing recent cases of corruption allegations - Multan metro bus bungling, offering Imran Khan Rs10bn to remain silent in Panama Papers case and receiving bribe amounting to Rs27bn by Javed Sadiq whom Khan declared my front man”.

To a question about defending former LDA head Ahad Cheema, Shahbaz Sharif said he had himself appeared in this case (Rs14bn Ayshiyana housing project scam) on false allegations against him. “There was a complete transparency in the Ashiyana project,” he said, politics was being played out.

Shahbaz parried a question about playing any role in reconciling his elder brother with Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. The former interior minister was not reportedly invited to the PML-N central working committee on Tuesday to elect Shahbaz and Nawaz as party interim president and supreme leader, respectively.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2018