Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shahbaz Gill has on Thursday said that only middle-class people get ‘punishment’ in Pakistan, adding that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Talal Chaudhry was also punished because he belonged to the middle class.
While talking to journalists in Multan, Shahbaz Gill said that punishments were not given to elites, only to those belonging to the middle class.
"If we do not get our rights, we will go to the courts," he added.
The PTI leader said that PTI Chairman Imran Khan was also being targeted because he was a public representative and did not belong to the elite.
He further said that PMLN Senior Vice President Maryam Nawaz used derogatory language against respected judges in Sargodha, made accusations against them, and displayed pictures of the judges, but she would not be punished because she was elite.
On Thursday, Maryam Nawaz came down hard on two Supreme Court judges hearing the Punjab, KP elections suo motu case, calling them "remnants" of former lieutenant general Faiz Hameed.
"These judges have sprung into action again to give Imran Khan’s dying politics a new life," Maryam told those in attendance in Sargodha on the occasion of the party’s workers’ convention.
"Mazahar Naqvi, Ijaz ul-Ahsan are the remnants of Faiz," she said, and added, "In particular, Ijaz ul-Ahsan becomes part of every bench hearing a case against Nawaz Sharif."
According to Maryam, a senior PDM leader had told her that when he questioned Faiz on his campaign against Nawaz, he replied, "[Nawaz] has outgrown us all" and needed to be "cut to size."
"Since he wanted to become the COAS, he wanted a pawn to carry forward his agenda; he found Imran Khan."
At the outset of her address, Maryam played out a video showing five men. "These were the conspirators [against the PMLN’s rule], this is the gang of five that was behind it all."
"These comprised and corrupt men became Faiz’ pawns to fulfil his agenda," she said. "The conspirers came up with ‘Project Imran’ after PTI’s 2014 sit-in failed to yield the required results.
In a breakthrough development on Wednesday night, the Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial took suo motu notice of apparent delays in the elections of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies, and formed a larger bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to hear the case.
The bench comprises the CJP himself, Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Munib Akhtar, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Athar Minallah.
Interestingly, two senior judges — Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood — were conspicuously missing from the list: they are second and third in terms of seniority after the CJP, and their preclusion from the larger bench has raised many eyebrows.