Qadri says Nawaz Sharif waging war against state

LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri said on Sunday ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N government have waged a war against the state.

While addressing the party leaders at its headquarters via telephone, Qadri took the former prime minister to task for criticising the judiciary.

He said the government was protecting the Sharif family who he said looted the national exchequer.

The PAT chief said the Sharif brothers were two sides of the same coin. “Murderers and plunderers should prove their innocence in courts instead of addressing public meetings,” he said.

He claimed Lahore High Court judge Ali Baqar Najafi’s report on the Model Town incident has identified those behind the massacre of innocent people and called for making the report public to bring those responsible to justice.

Earlier, addressing a public meeting in Abbottabad, Sharif said, “A whole drama was staged in the name of Panama Papers and my entire family was dragged into courts…but we still accepted the accountability calls because “we are not guilty”, he told a public gathering in Abbottabad.

While rejecting the idea of “Minus-Nawaz” and calling his name an ideology, Sharif said he would bring ‘revolutionary change’ in the country.

He insisted that the joint investigation team formed to probe Panama Papers and his family’s alleged connection with it would soon be exposed before the public.

Mr. Sharif expressed resentment that he was ousted for “not taking salaries from a company owned by my son.” When all attempts were in vain, they disqualified me on this incomprehensible context, he argued.

“Have you heard any such verdict anywhere else in the world? This only happens in Pakistan. We need to change this trend.”

He told people: “I will come back to you again in 2018 general elections with an aim to change fate of Pakistan.