Deposed prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif has called for the accountability of all those who 'toyed' and then 'destroyed' Pakistan, adding that his party sacrificed its political capital to prevent a fiscal default.
"If someone is lying on the side of the road dying, would you help them or let them die?" he asked rhetorically.
He said this while addressing a consultative meeting of the party's key leaders. Speaking via video link from his office in London, Nawaz said that if the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government had not taken the country's reins, it would have defaulted.
Nawaz said that they sacrificed their political capital to steady the economic ship of the country. He recounted how, during their tenure in 2017, sugar cost Rs50 per kilogramme. Today, people have received power bills of Rs30,000 when they used to get a bill for just Rs1,000 in 2017.
How will the people pay these bills, he asked.
He said that those who helped rid the country of load shedding and held a mandate of millions of people were removed by a panel of four judges.
Nawaz said that the chief justice at the time, Saqib Nisar and then Asif Saeed Khosa, acted as instruments of the former army chief and the former chief of the country's intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
"To forgive them would be injustice to the people. They are not worthy of forgiveness," he said, adding that those who are truly responsible for pushing the country to this point will face accountability.
He stated that Maryam Nawaz, Hamza Shebaz and many other party leaders and workers went to jail without committing a crime.
Nawaz, though, added that they harbour no desire for revenge. However, he added that letting these 'criminals' go scott-free would be a bigger crime.
"They are not worthy of forgiveness."
He added that they had sacrificed their political capital voluntarily for the love of the nation.