Zubair along with PML-N leader Attaullah Tarar, who has also been named in the sedition case, met the police station’s SHO, asking him to arrest him over the FIR. The former governor stated that the case could not have been registered without the state’s involvement, contesting the claims that the FIR was registered by a common man.
Sedition case
On Monday, Lahore police registered a case against PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif and other party leaders for ‘conspiring’ against the country and state institutions.
According to an FIR registered at Shahdara police station, the former prime minister was ‘carrying out a planned conspiracy to defame the country and its institutions by making inflammatory speeches’.
The FIR also implicated PML-N leaders Ahsan Iqbal, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pervaiz Rashid, Muhammad Zubair, Maryam Nawaz, Rana Sanaullah and Marriyum Aurangzeb and others who participated in the PML-N’s Central Executive Committee and Central Working Committee meetings held last week, reported Dawn.
It said the Nawaz, who went to London for medical treatment, was facing corruption charges in the courts of Pakistan. However, instead of availing medical care in England, the PML-N leader was ‘conspiring’ against the country.
It alleges that in the speeches made on September 20 and October 1, the former premier supported the policies of neighbouring India, so that Pakistan would continue to remain on the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘grey list’, reported the newspaper.
“The main purpose of Nawaz’s speeches is to isolate Pakistan in front of the international community and to declare it a rogue state,” the complaint says. It adds that Nawaz is trying to turn the people against the democratically elected government.
PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the FIR was ‘another black mark in the fictional history books of Pakistan’. He said that it had a ‘unique position among allegations of treason’ in Pakistani history.
Complainant booked in multiple cases
Badar Rasheed, the complainant in the sedition case against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has allegedly been involved in a number of crimes, including attempted murder, said police on Tuesday.
According to a report by Geo News, cases [first information report] against Rasheed have been registered at multiple police stations of the provincial capital. These cases range from attempted murder to illegal weapons and interference in government matters, it said, adding that he was detained by police in the past on multiple occasions.
Geo News reported that the complainant was booked at Shahdara police station over an attempted murder — the same police station where he lodged the sedition FIR against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership, including the Azad Kashmir prime minister.
On the other hand, an illegal weapons case had been registered at the Sharqpur police station of Lahore, whereas a case of interference in government matters and a scuffle with police had been registered at the Old Anarkali Police Station.
Media reports also linked Rasheed with the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), even though the party has distanced itself from the cases. They claim that Rasheed contested an election for a Union Council chairman post on a PTI ticket.