Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Senior Vice-President Maryam Nawaz on Friday took aim at the judiciary, questioning why courts were so eager to expedite cases against her father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, while showing leniency to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan.
“Is anyone going to give a verdict against this criminal, or has that been left on the day of judgement to decide?” she asked, adding that whenever Khan is summoned by the courts, he refuses to appear by claiming his leg is still injured. “He used to mock Nawaz Sharif and his wife [Kulsoom Nawaz]. Now, when he is summoned by the court, he shows his leg with a plaster cast,” she said.
“Imran Khan is done and dusted. He has reached his end,” she claimed, asking why the PTI chief’s “facilitators” still wanted to save a person who had “already drowned.” Wondering why these people were so bent on losing their jobs, she mocked the PTI’s ‘Jail Bharo’ movement, saying it had never taken off. “How did they suspend it? When the leader is sitting in Zamanat Park, why would workers want to fill the jails?” she said.
Referring to a case filed against her allegedly insulting state institutions in an earlier speech, she said “they” had a problem with what she had said, but weren’t concerned about the contents of audio leaks of PTI members that had surfaced in the last few months. Naming former Punjab chief minister Parvez Elahi, PTI Punjab leader Yasmin Rashid, and PTI Senior Vice-President Fawad Chaudhry, she asked if it was her who had been speaking in their leaded audios. “Now don’t say that the truck you parked outside the court was driven by Maryam Nawaz,” she said, referring to Fawad’s audio in which he allegedly told his brother to tell a Supreme Court judge a “truck” had been readied for him.
Waving a toy truck at the gathering, Maryam asked the PTI to use ‘truck’ as its election symbol instead of a ‘bat.’
The PMLN leader also slammed Khan for refusing to acknowledge his alleged daughter, Tyrian Jade White. “The person who cannot acknowledge his own daughter, how would he provide justice to Pakistan?” she said.
Maryam announced that she would run her party’s upcoming election campaign on the slogan of seeking justice for Nawaz Sharif. “Are you ready to get justice for Nawaz Sharif and will you support me in seeking justice for their party leader?” she asked the audience amid applause.