LONDON: In a public video message, former prime minister and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif accused elements in the country’s security establishment of threatening Maryam Nawaz.

“First you broke open the Karachi hotel room door where Maryam was staying, and now you are threatening her, that if she does not stop she will be smashed,” Mr Sharif said, in a near two-minute video posted on his Twitter account.

He also said democracy is being undermined in Pakistan and added that the “help given” during Prime Minister Imran Khan’s confidence vote in parliament is “no secret”.

Naming three senior army generals as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said whatever they have done is a grave crime and they would be held accountable.

Maryam Nawaz on Twitter later said she had not only been threatened but that those issuing the threat had also used abusive language.

Earlier in the day, she said PML-N senators were being called and asked not to vote for the PDM candidate. “Some of them have recorded the evidence,” she tweeted.

The chief military spokesman has more than once in the past rejected the allegation of the army’s involvement in the country’s political affairs.

Nawaz Sharif’s message was recorded in London, where he has been since December 2019 after getting permission from the federal government to travel abroad for treatment. In September 2020, Mr Sharif broke his nearly year-long silence and accused the security establishment of interfering in politics.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2021