KARACHI, April 8: Terming the attack on the former federal minister, Dr Sher Afgan Niazi, in Lahore an act of naked aggression, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said it believed that the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was behind the incident.

“We believe that the leadership of the PML-N is fully involved in the incident, which was a part of a well-thought plan to victimise political opponents,” the deputy convener of the MQM coordination committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, told a press conference here on Tuesday night.

Condemning the brutal incident, he said that those who were running the so-called campaign for the independence of the judiciary were behind this attack.

He said it was not an attack on Mr Niazi but on the entire judicial system, institution of the judiciary and its independence. “We wanted to inform the people that the country was being pushed towards anarchy.”

Referring to the incidents that occurred in the Sindh Assembly, he said that the manhandling of the former chief minister, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, was actually an attack on democracy.

Flanked by other members of the party’s coordination committee, he recalled an incident in which he himself was attacked by unruly persons in Islamabad when he was busy shifting injured journalists to a health facility.

Dr Sattar said that the MQM reserved the right to protest and it would lodge a protest at every forum.