LAHORE: The PTI leadership chided the PML-N and its chief organiser Maryam Nawaz Sharif for “launching a tirade against the judiciary” and accused the ruling party of blackmailing institutions through various tactics, including “leaking doctored audios and videos”.

In a meeting with former MPAs in Lahore on Friday, PTI President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi alleged that the PML-N had always tried to make state institutions controversial to hide its weaknesses. “The PML-N led by Maryam Nawaz is attacking the judiciary and also pressurising the masses,” the former Punjab chief minister said.

Mr Elahi said his former principal secretary, Muhammad Khan Bhatti, had been missing for the last 18 days and urged the superior judiciary to issue orders for his recovery.

He said the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies had been dissolved and general elections in both provinces were inevitable within 90 days since their dissolution in mid-January.

Asserting that the public’s collective decision was always right, he accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and both governors of running away from their duties.

Elahi says PML-N has always made institutions controversial to hide its weaknesses

Meanwhile, speaking to a delegation of party leaders and workers, PTI’s president for central Punjab, Dr Yasmin Rashid, said Ms Sharif “has gone berserk due to one failure after another” and she “should be ashamed for criticising the judges of the Supreme Court”.

Separately, PTI’s senior vice-president, Fawad Chaudhry, alleged that the entire Pakistani nation was being “blackmailed” at the hands of the incumbent government.

Speaking to media persons outside Zaman Park on Friday, Mr Chaudhry said every influential person was being blackmailed by the leaking of private audios and videos and through direct threats and fake cases. He alleged that “the mafia” was busy releasing doctored audio and video clips besides the use of deep fake technology.

Mr Chaudhry urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan and other judges to resist such blackmailing tactics and uphold the Constitution.

On the issue of provincial assembly polls, he said the superior judiciary should take independent dec­i­sions, adding that if the Constitution was not protected, the state and the society would be ruined.

Lauding the PTI leaders and workers for courting arrests, Mr Chaudhry said some 714 leaders and workers had courted arrest in Lahore, but only 77 arrests had been formalised, including those of party leaders Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar and Omar Sarfraz Cheema.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2023