PESHAWAR: Accusing the ruling PTI of illegally using the state institutions to serve political ends, PML-N Senator Pir Sabir Shah on Wednesday warned that his party would agitate if the government didn’t stop misusing powers.

Addressing a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, the PML-N leader said the PTI was politically victimising the opposition’s leaders by using law-enforcement agencies to suppress them and pave the way to introduce the presidential form of government in the country.

He said his party’s leaders were implicated by the government in false corruption cases to cover up its failure to fulfil commitments.

Accompanied by party’s provincial information secretary Ikhtiar Wali Khan and leader Haji Mohammad Afzal, Mr Shah resented the registration of a ‘false’ corruption case against the son of PML-N leader Amir Muqam and said the party would protest its leaders’ political victimisation inside and outside parliament besides moving the court for relief.

Senator Sabir Shah alleges PTI victimising opposition

He said the PML-N believed in the country’s development and strengthening of democratic institutions but the government was using the National Accountability Bureau to suppress it and other opposition parties.

The PML-N leader said the arrests won’t suppress the party leaders, who would continue fighting for the people’s rights.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan and his team had miserably failed to manage the country’s economic affairs and wanted to run the country on donations.

Mr Shah said PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and other leaders were imprisoned for talking about the people’s rights.

He said dictatorship was no different from policies of the PTI government which believed in politics of confrontation, victimisation and chaos.

The PML-N leader warned that before acting against the PML-N leaders, the relevant officials should think about the ‘illegal’ crackdown’s repercussions they would face after the party would return to power.

He said on one hand, the premier claimed to be working for turning Pakistan into a Medina-like state but on the other, his government was involved in the victimisation of political opponents and misuse of powers.

Mr Shah said the government’s policies had miserably failed to address the people’s grievances.

“Prices of consumer goods are escalating but the rulers don’t know how to control them,” he said.

The PML-N leader said the devaluation of Pakistani rupee had made the life of common men extremely miserable as they’re struggling to manage daily expenditure.

Mr Shah, who is a former chief minister of the province, said the ruling PTI had literally handed over the country to the International Monetary Fund by accepting its bailout package.

“Pakistan has become a colony of IMF,” he said.

The PML-N leader said the increasing inflation rate had forced the people to take to the streets and that the rulers would be ousted soon.

Meanwhile, PML-N leader Ikhtiar Wali Khan flayed the arrest of party leader Amir Muqam’s son, Ishtiaq Amir Muqam, and said the PTI government was trying to silence the PML-N leaders through victimisation.

He warned that the PML-N workers would start agitation in case the government did not stop the misuse of powers.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2019