Another ‘deliberate attack’ on judiciary to guard Sharifs, says IK

ISLAMABAD: Calling on the masses to stand up in defence of the state institutions, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that the ruling party on Friday has attacked the country’s judiciary for the second time.

Taking to twitter, Khan said that the attack was carried out to protect former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ‘loot’ wealth worth Rs30 billion which allegedly has been stashed abroad.

Coming down hard on Interior Minister, the PTI chief said: “Now we know the drama of ‘darbari’ Ahsan Iqbal over the Rangers’ presence in NAB court — it was to leave the NAB judge unprotected.”

He made these remarks in connection with Oct 2 incident when Rangers personnel denied entry to the Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal who had arrived at the accountability court to witness the graft proceedings on ex-PM Sharif’s appearance.

Calling upon the common masses, Khan lambasted at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for confronting with state institutions. “Clearly [the] PMLN is hell-bent on destroying all state institutions. Ppl [people] of Pak [Pakistan] must be prepared to stand up & defend our state institutions,” he asserted.

He said that the disintegration of the state is top agenda of ousted PM Sharif after apparently employing strong-arm tactics against state institutions.

It is apropos to mention here that the activists and leaders of the PML-N forced their way into the Supreme Court on November 28, 1997 during a contempt proceeding against Nawaz Sharif while manhandling the judges and inflicting damages to the court premises.

Earlier today, the accountability court had abruptly adjourned hearing three graft references against the Sharif family members and fixed October 19, as new date, for the indictment after the lawyers staged a protest inside the courtroom.

Judge Muhammad Bashir adjourned the hearing soon after the proceedings began when the lawyers forced their way into the courtroom and surrounded the judge.

“Islamabad High Court has allowed lawyers to witness court proceedings, be it the accountability court since it is an open court,” the lawyers claimed.

These voices echoed in the courtroom following a scuffle broke out between the federal police and PML-N lawyers outside the courtroom.

The ruling party’s lawyers were trying to enter the court premises to witness the proceedings when they were denied an entry by police in the wake of stringent security measures, this led to a brawl with security guards.

According to police officials, they had been given a task to deny entry to any unwarranted person into the court room other than the prosecutor and Sharif family members.

The security measures were taken to ward off any untoward incident, the officials added.