By Irum Saleem
Upon convict PMLN supremo Nawaz Sharif’s arrival in Islamabad and Lahore, he was accorded PM-designate like protocol.
ایک سزا یافتہ مجرم کے لیے عدالت خود ائیرپورٹ جاکر حاضری لگواتی ہے اور ایک وزیراعظم جو حاضری لگوانے عدالت جاتا ہے اس کو اٹھا لیا جاتا ہے۔ اس طرح کی ناانصافیوں کا وزن عدالتوں پر ہی پڑے گا۔
— Moonis Elahi (@MoonisElahi6) October 21, 2023
Both the caretaker governments of Kakar and Mohsin Naqvi gave him VVIP protocol on Saturday.
Even Lahore police chief Bilal Sadique Kamyana saluted Sharif upon his arrival here a video of it also went viral on the social media. The protocol given to him by the Naqvi administration was said be a PM-designated one. Besides, there was a massive deployment of Punjab police enroute to the Minar-i-Pakistan, giving a look of a government event.
The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) strongly criticised the ‘VVIP protocol’ given to former prime minister Sharif upon his return to Pakistan, alleging that all federal and Punjab government resources were massively used to manage the return of a ‘convicted absconder’.
The PTI says that people would hold the ‘convicted prisoner’ accountable if no one else would.
According to PTI secretary general Omar Ayub Khan, the convict was being unjustly and unlawfully facilitated in everything.
Makhdoom sb he shoots the umpire in this as well… https://t.co/Ywlq0d44cR
— Moonis Elahi (@MoonisElahi6) October 22, 2023
عوامی ردعمل… pic.twitter.com/bqWzUVAQGT
— Moonis Elahi (@MoonisElahi6) October 21, 2023
Another show of strength? To prove what? Why must families be put through this? I hope judiciary takes clear action where at least families are protected. We all stand with you @Jhagra https://t.co/f8hlHVnJja
— Moonis Elahi (@MoonisElahi6) October 21, 2023
“A convicted prisoner got VVIP protocol and the State Room opened at Islamabad Airport to receive him,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s legal system has been completely destroyed by PML-N.
Commenting on photos of Nawaz providing his biometrics at the airport, he remarked “one country, two constitutions”.
“This picture is not only of Nawaz Sharif’s biometrics, but of the funeral of Pakistan’s judicial system. The whole world had seen the coercion and treatment of Imran Khan for the same biometrics,” he said.
Dawn also reported the PTI leaders’ condemnation of giving a state protocol to a convict widely.
Ayub said the court staff went to the airport to get his biometric attendance done, while in a sharp contrast, another prime minister (Imran Khan) was picked up from court while giving his biometrics for attendance.
PTI leader and former federal minister Moonis Elahi said on X that the Punjab government had instructed all deputy commissioners to provide transport as well as ensure attendance of government employees such as ‘patwaris’. “King of Patwaris is coming so all patwaris must attend!!!,” Moonis commented.
The PTI leaders said people of Lahore completely rejected the PML-N and its absconding leader’s homecoming after four years of self-exile, which began with a request for medical treatment in London on a Rs100 affidavit.
They alleged that the establishment fully supported the party’s call so that people from across the country reach Punjab and gather at the jalsa venue, Minar-i-Pakistan, in Lahore.
The PTI supporters ran two twitter trends against the PML-N supremo and its power show and posted videos.
After Mr Sharif’s speech, former PTI spokesman Dr Shahbaz Gill commented the PML-N supremo has “dampened the hopes” of those who thought his “meanness might have scaled down”.
Referring to the increase in power, gas and petrol rates, Mr Gill commented that the elder Sharif was criticising the Shehbaz Sharif government’s tenure. “Lost affection for his brother,” Mr Gill remarked.
Videos showing people leaving the venue even before the PML-N supremo could complete his speech.
The PTI deplored that the state buried all the decency, modesty, law and justice to facilitate the unhindered and smooth homecoming of a person under a ‘London Plan’, without elaborating the details of the alleged plan.
It stated that after the regime change conspiracy, the Constitution and democracy-weary state elements tied the country and the nation in the chains of dictatorship and threw it to corrupt wolves.
It said PTI Chairman Imran Khan had decided 27 years ago to launch an unprecedented political struggle against such partnership between crime and the state.
The PTI. made it clear that under the leadership of Mr Khan, the conscious nation was standing firmly in the face of forces that conquered the country through conspiracy, coercion, state power, thieves, thugs, fraudsters and mafias.
Let’s see how things unfold in coming days as Nawaz Sharif is desperate to become PM in the wake of ceremonial elections. And the PPP is very much critical of ‘selection’. It wants election and not selection. PAK DESTINY
