LAHORE: Some 40 PML-N lawmakers and Senators were denied meeting with their party supremo Nawaz Sharif at the Kot Lakhpat jail on Thursday.

Separately, PML-N provincial lawmakers led by MPA Khalil Tahir Sindhu staged a sit-in outside the Camp jail here for failing to get permission to meet Rana Sanullah who has been on judicial remand in a narcotics case till July 16.

The legislators gathered outside the Kot Lakhpat jail in the morning and submitted requests to the authorities concerned to visit Mr Sharif but they were told (by the jail officials) that only the blood relations were allowed under the ‘new directive’ of the government.

Rana Sana kept in inhuman condition, alleges wife

This was the third consecutive Thursday that the jail authorities on the order of the Usman Buzdar administration stopped the PML-N leaders and workers from seeing the former prime minister.

As the PTI government has not come up with any plausible reason to place a bar on the PML-N lawmakers from meeting with Mr Sharif, the PML-N believes the government, especially Prime Minister Imran Khan, wants to ‘minimise’ his political activity from jail.

Mr Sharif’s daughter Maryam Nawaz has also challenged the government’s ban on the PML-N men to visit him (in jail) and sought permission to see him twice a week.

Maryam and PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif met Mr Sharif for about two hours and ‘briefed’ him on the current political situation especially the arrest of MNA Rana Sanaullah Khan. Mr Sharif reportedly expressed serious concern on his arrest and directed Mr Shahbaz to aggressively contest his (Sanaullah) case in the court to prove his innocence.

A heavy contingent of police was deployed outside the Kot Lakhpat jail to meet any eventuality. The police uprooted the camp set up by the PML-N workers outside the jail and pushed them back from the ‘restricted area’. The workers protested against the police behavior and chanted slogans against PM Khan and in favour of their leadership. Both leaders and workers also expressed solidarity with Mr Sanaullah and termed it a “vengeance of PM Khan” against him.

“Today some 40 members of national and Punjab assemblies and Senators came here to meet Nawaz Sharif but they were not allowed to visit him. This is the third consecutive week that the PML-N leaders and workers were not allowed to visit their leader in jail. These are fascist tactics of the PTI government,” PML-N senior vice-president and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told reporters outside the jail.

He said Rana Sanaullah was a brave man and he would face this testing times with courage. “Imran Khan should give NRO to his cabinet members who have committed a corruption of billions of rupees,” he said.

Senior leader Khwaja Asif said the government had imposed a ban on Mr Sharif’s meetings with the party men in order to cut off his connection with the people outside. “Imran should stop the rant of NRO as he is not in a position to give this to anyone,” he said and lamented the government for not providing medicines and food to Rana Sanaullah. He said not even a child would buy the government’s claim of recovering narcotics from the vehicle of Sanaullah.

PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal taunted PM Khan and his government, saying that it could even recover F-16 from its opponents’ vehicle.

After meeting Mr Sharif, his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif told reporters that time was not far away when Imran Khan would be taken to task for what he was doing today.

Addressing Khan, Shahbaz said: “Do not stop the PML-N men from meeting their leader. You are a fascist leader who is depriving the basic facilities to Rana Sanaullah in jail,” he said.

Rana Sanullah’s wife Nabila Sana told reporters outside the Camp Jail that her husband had been kept in inhuman conditions. “He was even unable to speak when I met him today. He told me that only a piece of bred was given to him today since his arrest on Monday last,” she said and expressed her fear about the life of her husband. “If any thing happens to my husband PM Imran Khan will be directly responsible,” she said.

Nawaz Sharif’s personal physician Dr Adnan Khan also protested for not being allowed to see his patient.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2019