RAWALPINDI: Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, on Sunday continued veiled attacks on the judiciary, saying “the people cannot allow five persons of any institution to send an elec­ted prime minister packing”.

Addressing a charged crowd at PML-N’s Social Media Convention at Fawara Chowk, she said: “If you did not agree [with the judgements] then stand up and be counted in the next general election to reject puppets and those who disgraced your votes as well as those doing politics of foul language and (playing) the politics of allegations.”

In a clear reference to the incident of shoe-hurling at her father in Lahore, Mar­yam called them “cowards” and asked those responsible for it to come in the public.

“Don’t attack under the veil. Nawaz Sharif will not get afraid of such a cowardly act. Lions do not fear jackals. Those who get defeats use such tactics. People will avenge those who are behind this act by voting in favour of Nawaz Sharif in the general election,” she said.

Maryam said the incident would increase Nawaz Sharif’s popularity, which was evident from the participation of the people in the convention.

“Attack me if you have courage,” she said, while removing the bullet-proof screen from the stage.

Maryam also lashed out at PTI chairman Imran Khan and said that such ugly violent incidents were the result of his politics. She alleged that Imran Khan had been promoting a culture of intolerance in society and use of foul language in politics.

“Do you think, just one message of condemnation (of the shoe-hurling incident) is enough? You (Imran Khan) promoted the culture of abusive language over the last five years in sit-ins and public meetings. Haven’t you talked about dragging opponents by their neck from Prime Minister House?” she asked.

She alleged that Nawaz Sharif’s opponents were doing politics of horse-trading. She said her father neither bowed before anyone nor let down his voters. “Imran Khan bowed before Zardari sahib as he gave 12 of his votes in Senate to him (Asif Zardari),” she said in reference to Mr Khan’s announcement to support the Senate’s deputy chairman candidate from the PPP, if the independents from Balochistan were allowed to contest for the chairmanship.

In an interesting move, Maryam Nawaz asked one of the participants to hand her a scale — a symbol used for the judiciary — which he had brought to the gathering. She said that on one side of it a ladla (Imran Khan) was sitting with offshore companies and forged documents of his Banigala residence, while on the other there was Nawaz Sharif, who had no offshore company but was sent home for not taking salary from his son.

She also came down hard on the joint investigation team (JIT) on the Panama Papers case and said it found nothing in the case despite spending millions of rupees. “The JIT head gave millions of rupees to his relatives in the name of investigations,” she alleged.

“Supreme Court gave six months to probe the case, but the investigators failed to find the corruption of even six rupees in the case,” she said.

Maryam said that she and her father wanted to go abroad to see ailing Kulsoom Nawaz who was fighting cancer. “For the last four months, we were not given permission to go to see my ailing mother who had been again admitted to a hospital as a tumor has appeared in her neck,” she regretted.

She appreciated the performance of PML-N’s social media.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2018