LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior vice president and chief organiser Maryam Nawaz has said the government has been waiting for the start of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s ‘court arrest’ drive and has called on PTI Chairman Imran Khan to launch it from his Zaman Park residence.

While addressing the media at a Multan hotel on Monday, the PML-N leader said Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, too, was waiting for Mr Khan’s arrest so that the women deputed outside Zaman Park house be allowed to leave and the ex-premier learn what jail and death cell were like.

Drawing a sharp contrast between the PTI and PML-N leadership, she said her father Nawaz Sharif faced courts and remained in jail for one year and Mr Sanaullah for six months in ‘fake and fabricated’ cases against them, but PTI leaders started weeping soon after being arrested and spending two days in lock-up.

She criticised ‘the double standard of justice’ in the previous PML-N tenure and the one of Mr Khan, as the latter enjoyed the backing of Dam Baba (an indirect reference to former chief justice Saqib Nisar).

Replying to a query about PTI’s claim of political victimisation, Ms Nawaz insisted no one in the government was taking any revenge, as Mr Khan was reaping what he had sowed. She said she was ready to stand with Mr Khan if any media person would pinpoint any case, based on revenge, against him.

She then reminded the journalists that media faced victimisation during the PTI government as several media persons were picked up or removed from jobs. “I fully support press freedom,” she claimed.

About rising inflation, Ms Nawaz said people were aware of the causes of their economic hardship. She said it was provincial governments’ responsibility to control inflation and the PTI despite ruling Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir had rep­eatedly blamed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for it.

However, she added, only with political and economic stability, the country could progress by meeting challenges of any external threat.

She reminded the people of southern Punjab that a movement was launched before the 2018 general elections in the name of a separate province for the Seraiki belt and the PTI had promised them that this would be its top priority after coming to power. But the fact of the matter was that the PTI did nothing, rather the PML-N that passed the resolution for creation of a new province, she said.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2023