Sana arrested to divert attention from oppressive budget, strikes: Shahbaz

LAHORE: Opposition leader in National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-N President Shahbaz Sharif alleged on Tuesday that Prime Minister Imran Khan personally ordered for the arrest of Rana Sanaullah in a fake narcotics case to silence one of the most vocal opponents in the parliament and to divert the public attention from the ongoing country-wide protests and strikes against the oppressive budget and massive inflation.

“This is the worst case of political victimisation by Imran Niazi to remove his critic and silence one of the loudest voices against price-hike, unleashed by the anti-people budget,” he said.

The PML-N chief was addressing a press conference at party’s Model Town Secretariat after chairing a meeting of the parliamentary advisory group of the party. Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal and Marriyum Aurangzeb were also present.

Shahbaz said Imran Khan crossed all limits of political victimisation with this kind of baseless case of narcotics smuggling, adding nobody would smuggle drugs from Faisalabad to Lahore since it had never been a drug route. He said such baseless cases were not made even by the military dictators in the past, but the PTI had crossed all limits. He said the personal victimisation showed how much frustrated Imran Niazi and the PTI leadership had become against the PML-N. He said Rana Sanaullah had been instrumental in closing down drugs dens and hunting down the drug-pushers.

Shahbaz warned Prime Minister Imran Khan that the PML-N would never give up the cause of poor people against the massive price-hike, unleashed by the anti-people budget. He said if the PM could end poverty in the country through such tactics, then they all were ready to go to jails.

Shahbaz lamented that Prime Minister had ordered the jail authorities to ban physician-recommended food (parhezi khana) for Nawaz Sharif, being sent from home, and also visits by his physician and relatives. He warned that with such cheap tactics, Imran Niazi would never be able to break the strength of PML-N leadership. He said Imran Niazi was still living in the captaincy of 1992, adding that the World Cup was not won single-handedly by Imran but it was a team effort.

Shahbaz said he was saying it with full responsibility that the country had never seen the worst liar and deceitful prime minister like Imran Khan in its 72-year history. He alleged that Imran Niazi had promoted family corruption to new heights, and smartly covered up the huge properties of his sister Aleema Khan. He said the party had constituted a committee to probe those MPAs who met Imran Khan, and has sent them notices, adding that Imran Khan had also become master of horse-trading. He clarified that the PML-N had never tried to break up the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and those who left that party to join the PML-N were never given ministries or party offices.

He alleged that Prime Minister Imran Khan had destroyed country’s economy in 11 months and was heading towards destroying everything within next few months. He said that Imran Khan was descended on the country like a curse.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said it was strange that nothing was recovered from Rana Sanaullah’s vehicle but he was detained after he and the ANF officials, who stopped him, exchanged hot words on Ravi bridge. But the recovery was declared several hours later in the night. He termed it an attempt to divert the public anger from the IMF-dictated price-hike and suppress opposition’s voice against inflation. He said Rana Sanaullah’s political struggle had reached from Fortress and safe houses to ANF lock-ups, and the PTI government had crossed all limits of political victimisation.