LAHORE: Police arrested PML-N MPA Khwaja Imran Nazir on Saturday in a case involving violence at the Lahore National Accountability Bureau (NAB) office during Maryam Nawaz ‘s arrival there last August.
Mr Nazir and other leaders of the PML-N called his detention an effort to stop the leaders of the PML-N from making a success of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Dec 13 rally in Lahore. In this case, Nazir, the Secretary General of the PML-N, Lahore, had not obtained bail.
In this scenario, a good number of PML-N leaders nominated in this case, including Maryam Nawaz, have yet to obtain bail. DIG Investigation Shahzada Sultan did not respond to the question from Dawn as to why in this case only ‘one nominated suspect’ had been arrested.
The staff and representatives of the PML-N visited the Chuhng police station and organised a rally against his detention. For an hour or so, the protest created a major traffic jam on Multan Road.
Violence exploded outside the NAB office in August when strong police contingents and PML-N staff challenged each other in a land acquisition probe shortly after the entry of opposition party vice president Maryam Nawaz there. Many persons, including some politicians, were wounded and about 50 men were rounded up after police shot tear gas at the demonstrators in addition to throwing stones, with each side blaming the other for sparking the clash.
Ms Nawaz alleged that while sharing a video of her bulletproof car’s shattered windshield on her Twitter account, the government wanted to inflict damage to her by police action.
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Some 300 PML-N staff, including Ms Nawaz and 187 other nominated persons, were booked by the Chuhng Police for targeting law enforcers and NAB officials and damaging the building of the anti-graft watchdog.
Marriyum Aurangzeb, PML-N information minister, said that no amount of persecution by the authoritarian PTI regime to disrupt the public meeting of PDM Lahore would succeed.
The more people detained by the Imran Khan administration, the more effective the public PDM Lahore meeting would be. In their fascination with political victimisation and revenge, the picked sugar and flour robbers lost their minds. Imran could not sabotage the Lahore public meeting by arresting courageous hearts like Imran Nazir. In reality, he will end up further invigorating the PDM support base,’ he said.
The former Minister of Information said that Imran ‘s latest public meetings were “an indication of his anger and dissatisfaction.” The PML-N could not be afraid of such methods and attacks, she added, adding that, no matter how callous and barbaric the behaviour he adopted towards the incarcerated Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz, Imran Khan will not get the NRO from Nawaz Sharif and PML-N.
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