“The officer left and with that began for me a tale of torment and agony,” said Asif Bashir Chaudhry, a senior parliamentary reporter based in Islamabad.
“They hurled threats at my mother over the phone. A patient of high blood pressure, she suffered a brain hemorrhage the same day,” the journalist said in a series of tweets the other day.
He added, “The doctors managed to save her life but she has been bed-ridden ever since.”
On the micro-blogging website, Chaudhry recalled how it all happened after he had chased an alleged intelligence high-up outside an accountability court five years ago.
According to him, the officer was on his way back after meeting Mohammad Bashir, a judge hearing the cases of former Prime Minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.
In the video shared by the parliamentary reporter on Twitter, a man wearing a suit can be seen walking away as he apparently attempts to avoid the journalist’s questions.
“Sir, how was your meeting with the judge,” he asks the man, who denies any such meeting and then refuses to answer why he was at the court in the first place.
In another tweet, Chaudhry wrote, “I thought I had exposed those who decide the country’s fate behind the scenes and it will strengthen the struggle for constitutional and civilian supremacy.”
https://twitter.com/asifbashirch/status/1576595060925534208
“Today, I hang my head [in shame] when my mother asks me about my fight for that supremacy,” he said. “She then asks me to continue to march forward and never think about a retreat.”
The journalist maintained, “But I feel that I am the one responsible for what she is going through; she is paying the price for how I felt about civilian supremacy.”
“I don’t have the courage to let her know what I am going through and how I feel about it,” Chaudhry concluded.
https://twitter.com/asifbashirch/status/1576595085357363200
In July 2018, accountability judge Mohammad Bashir convicted the former premier and his daughter Maryam Nawaz in the Avenfield properties case and awarded them prison terms of 10 and 7 years, respectively.
On Thursday, setting aside the verdict, the Islamabad High Court acquitted Maryam and her spouse Capt (retd) Safdar of the charges levelled, paving the way for Nawaz’ daughter to contest any forthcoming election.