ISLAMABAD, March 15: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Thursday lodged a protest with the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) chief over a statement of his party’s acting parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in which he criticised the PPP’s policy on the ongoing judicial crisis.

Sources told Dawn that the PPP leadership contacted Nawaz Sharif in London and termed Mr Nisar’s criticism of the party uncalled for.

“Yes, we have talked to Nawaz Sharif and told him that such statements could harm the relationship between the two parties which are partners in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD),” said a PPP official on condition of anonymity.

Chaudhry Nisar at a news conference on Wednesday expressed concern over the absence of senior PPP leadership from protest demonstrations organised by opposition parties in Islamabad against the ‘suspension’ of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The PML-N leader had appealed to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto to make sure that her party played an active role in the struggle of lawyers for the independence of judiciary, adding that the absence of the PPP leadership from a demonstration outside the Supreme Court building on March 13 had been noticed by the media and opposition leaders.

Speaking at a news conference at the PPP Central Secretariat on Thursday evening, PPP president Makhdoom Amin Fahim said that his party fully supported the lawyers in their struggle and protest against the “illegal and unconstitutional suspension” of the chief justice.

Commenting on Chaudhry Nisar’s statement, Mr Fahim said he did not want to say anything about it except that he was not expecting it. “We were not expecting such a statement from Mr Nisar at this point of time,” he added.

Mr Fahim said that his party’s lawyers were on the forefront of the protest.