ISLAMABAD, April 23: Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Monday that recent actions by the top judiciary indicate that a regime worse than a martial law has been imposed across Pakistan.
Speaking to reporters inside the accountability court in Islamabad, Nawaz Sharif claimed: “What is prevalent in the country is not democracy, but the worst kind of dictatorship under Saqib Nisar.”
“What is happening in the country is not less than a ‘judicial martial law’,” said the former prime minister, who returned from London late on Sunday after seeing his ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz, who has been undergoing cancer treatment there.
Criticizing recent judgments by the courts as “illogical”, Nawaz Sharif said the alleged silencing of 220 million people of Pakistan would not be acceptable to him.
“These many restrictions were not even imposed during the martial laws that we are seeing today,” he remarked.
The former premier claimed serious efforts are being made to convict him in the corruption references being heard by the accountability court, which he said were an attempt “to make the five judges successful” – a reference to the five-member SC bench which had disqualified him last year in the Panama Papers case.
Directing his criticism at the CJP once again, Nawaz Sharif said Justice Saqib Nisar visits hospitals regularly and talks about vegetable prices, but “he should also visit the home of an oppressed person whose case hasn’t been decided for 20 years”.
“It is not your job to summon the chief minister and make the government stand in the line,” he said, addressing the CJP. Referring to the remarks by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Amir Senator Sirjaul Haq about Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) voting for Sadiq Sanjrani during the Senate elections following an “order from the top”, Nawaz Sharif said the revelation was meaningful. – Sabah
