Those they called traitors, the people of Pakistan made them their heroes: Maryam

Published May 16, 2021
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz addresses a workers convention in Sheikhupura
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz addresses a workers convention in Sheikhupura

PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said on Sunday that the people who had been branded as traitors were instead adopted as heroes by Pakistan's 220 million population.

While addressing a worker's convention in Sheikhupura, Maryam said that Fatima Jinnah was the first to be branded a traitor and the label had been applied to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and herself as well.

"If calling right as right, the truth the truth and talking about the supremacy of the Constitution, institutions and abiding the law is ghaddari (treachery) then we will do ghaddari again and again."

She said the times were changing and they had stopped being afraid. Maryam said: "Those they branded as traitors after such efforts were instead adopted as heroes by Pakistan's 220m population."

Maryam added that all manner of accusations had been placed on Nawaz but decisions were coming in favour from every "corner of Pakistan" despite him being in London. Pointing to the PML-N's victory in the Daska by-election, she said people had supported his stance and given respect to the vote.

"Should I tell you who are the [real] traitors? The nation knows who are the traitors."

Maryam claimed there was a time when traitors occupied seats of power and people waited for their abdication to call them a traitor but now "the time has changed. They are sitting on the seats but the nation is not worried about saying who are the traitors."

"I am not only standing with a lion like Javed Latif [and] with Nawaz Sharif's stance but with every individual who is standing with Nawaz Sharif's stance," said Maryam, adding that if a "son of Sheikhupura" like Latif was labelled a traitor then not only was everyone living in Sheikhupura traitor but "we all are".

She said that Latif had faced danger and remained steadfast on truth and justice and in doing so, fulfilled Pakistan's mitti ka haq (right of the soil).

Township police had registered an FIR against the PML-N member in March on the complaint of citizen Jameel Saleem under sections 120/120B, 153/153A, 500, 505(i)(B) and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The sections deal with the offences of causing incitement against the state institutions, including the army, and promoting enmity between different groups.

In a television programme, Latif had said his party would not say “Pakistan Khappay” (long live Pakistan) if anything happened to its vice president Maryam Nawaz. He was arrested on April 27 after a sessions court withdrew his pre-arrest bail.

A judicial magistrate at Model Town courts on Wednesday had turned down his plea to annul the case of inciting people against the state institutions and had sent him to jail on judicial remand.

The PML-N vice president then went on to describe what she considered as acts of traitors such as: making a deal for Kashmir and Kashmiris; criticising Pakistan's ambassadors and foreign missions while the international and Pakistani media was watching; planning to secretly sell Kashmir while sitting in other countries; playing with the lives of the population and more.

"Nawaz Sharif was the nation's prime minister who came through votes and was not a selected prime minister who came after being selected or climbing anyone's shoulders.

"When you use Pakistan's national institutions to remove such a prime minister then that is called ghaddari," said Maryam.

She also added that when fingers were raised at national institutions, dirtied and likened as criminals in the eyes of the people and subjected to "the fire of criticism" then that was also called "treachery with Pakistan".

"When names like (Justice) Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui are dirtied and the judiciary is made controversial then this is called treachery."

Maryam said that now no one was ready to believe these labels of traitor and if someone as patriotic as PML-N's Javed Latif was labelled as a traitor then "remember, your day of accountability is near."

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