Imran will have to pay for crimes against country: Maryam

LAHORE: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on Tuesday said the policy of selective justice cannot be accepted any longer. While Nawaz is away from the country for crimes he did not commit, Imran is moving scot-free, she said. The PTI chief will have to answer for his crimes against the nation.

She also announced that the former prime minister will soon return as all the obstacles have been removed. Addressing a press conference at the party secretariat in Model Town here on Tuesday, Maryam Nawaz demanded that the contempt cases against PMLN leaders Khurram Dastgir, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Parvez Rasheed and Naseer Bhutta should be quashed like that of PTI chief Imran Khan.

Maryam thanked all those who supported her, especially Amjad Parvez who fought for the truth. She said Nawaz Sharif is not in the country for the crimes he did not commit while Imran Khan is walking freely despite heaps of evidence against him. This policy of selective justice is not acceptable, she charged.

The PTI chief will have to pay for his misdeeds. When justice is done, Imran Khan will not be seen anywhere in politics but will be in jail, said Maryam. She said, “there are grave allegations and strong evidence against Imran Khan and he cannot escape any court in the world.” The mother of all cases is foreign funding, she added.

“Now the way for the return of Nawaz Sharif is all clear and he will return soon,” Maryam said. She said that she was glad to have her passport back after three years and questioned why she was deprived of her basic right to travel. The PMLN central vice president spoke at length about her legal battles, Khan’s vendetta against her family, the court’s decision to let him go and other pressing political matters.

She said the Chaudhary Sugar Mills case was never framed against her but she was nominated in that case. In 2019, when she was holding huge public gatherings, a case was made against her under the pressure of Imran Khan and she remained under NAB detention for 57 days without committing any crime or offence. This persecution made me the first woman in the history of NAB to be detained, she said.

She said NAB was created for men but she was detained and kept at Kot Lakhpat jail where she was investigated and questioned about the books she read, who makes the party policy and even what kind of food is made at home, etc. To-date, that case has not been registered against her.

The PMLN leader said while Imran Khan was making big claims before the public but in private meetings, he was making requests for an NRO. She questioned why her passport was kept illegally and added she faced six years of false Panama case. “Why was that fabricated case made?”

Maryam said that IHC’s dismissal of the contempt case against the ‘devil Imran’ has emboldened him. The judiciary, she said, should not have been lenient with Imran who works like a satan and habitually creates smear campaigns against his rivals but seeks apologies when he fears strong action coming.

Referring to Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry episode, Maryam charged Imran only went to her court when he was certain he was left with no alternative to avoid contempt indictment. She questioned was Judge Zeba Chaudhary asked if she wanted to forgive him or not? Do the courts know what kind of precedent you are setting? “Now, anyone can abuse and threaten any woman in the jalsas,” she said.

Maryam added that since Khan has been forgiven, the contempt cases against PMLN leaders Talal Chaudhry, Daniyal Aziz, and Nehal Hashmi should also be disposed of. “This devil (Khan) whom you have forgiven will do this again. He has been emboldened as he knows that now no matter what he does, he can seek forgiveness and will get scot free,” she said.

Talking about the cipher controversy, Maryam said Imran Khan claims he has “misplaced” the US cipher that allegedly engineered his removal from the government to his ouster and said she was “at a loss of words” at the PTI chairman’s carelessness. “This wasn’t a record of a diamond ring that you misplaced or the record of the dollars that you took in the foreign funding case. It was Pakistan’s property.”

Maryam said ever since Pakistan’s inception, no cipher had ever been misplaced. But if this was not all, Imran committed a more serious crime of changing the minutes of the meeting. She said while in the real cipher, “there was no mention of a conspiracy, but he manipulated the contents to build a conspiracy.”

The PMLN vice president said that after Khan’s stint, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had told officials that the international world had refused to send ciphers to Pakistan, fearing that it might be turned into a conspiracy. The PMLN leader castigated Khan for dissolving the parliament on the basis of “forged” minutes of the meeting.

“Imran Khan could not have won the election without removing his biggest opponent and which was why I was detained. They could not produce a single proof or document to prove the properties of Nawaz Sharif.”

She went on to say that her grandfather was a businessman from whom the properties were passed directly to the grandsons and granddaughters. After the acquittal, the PTI people alleged that NAB was now working under the incumbent government, therefore, the NAB lawyers did not contest the case. But, she said, in her case there was a NAB prosecutor who was assigned to her case from day one and she had told her lawyer “I do not want to take advantage from the amendments in the NAB law. And I got justice under the old NAB law.” She said, “You (Imran Khan) kept blackmailing Justice Javed Iqbal by showing his compromising videos and making cases against your opponents.”