LAHORE: The Kot Lakhpat police Thursday lodged a case against 1,500 workers of the PML-N for staging a rally and blocking the railway track and traffic as they accompanied their leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to the Kot Lakhpat Jail two days back after his six-week bail expired.

The first information report (FIR) was lodged under various sections of the Pakistan Penal Code and the Railways Act 1890 on complaint of a sub-inspector of the Kot Lakhpat police.

The workers of the PML-N were accused of creating nuisance for the general public by blocking the railway track and both sides of the Ferozepur Road near Shanghai Bridge of Chungi Amar Sidhu. They were also accused of raising slogans against the PTI government in Punjab, according to the FIR.

PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb strongly condemned the government’s move of lodging a criminal case against the party workers.

She said the PML-N workers had neither attacked the parliament nor did they announce a civil disobedience movement against the government as Prime Minister Imran Khan had done when he was in the opposition. She said Imran Khan had also threatened to ‘drag the police personnel’ deputed at that time in Islamabad.

“Instead of abusing the government, the PML-N workers were peacefully accompanying their beloved leader Nawaz Sharif,” she said and lamented that registration of the FIR in the regime of ‘selected Prime Minister Imran Niazi’ would be remembered as a cruel decision.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2019