Safdar’s arrest was a conspiracy to dent anti-govt alliance: Maryam Nawaz

KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has said Capt Safdar’s arrest in Karachi was a conspiracy to dent the anti-government alliance.

While addressing a press conference along with leaders of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – including Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of PPP she said, “Don’t blackmail me through my family and people around me. Come arrest me if you have courage.”

Maryam Nawaz said, “I also want to reveal here that Capt Safdar has been receiving death threats for some time now. And these threats are coming from a very high level,” she claimed.

“If they believe threats could coerce Nawaz Sharif or Maryam Nawaz into silence; if they believe this could create rifts in the PDM or undermine its unity, then they are mistaken,” she added.

She said the arrest of Capt Safdar would only lend a popularity boost to Nawaz Sharif’s narrative who says ‘there is a state above the state and a government above the government in Pakistan’. “Nawaz Sharif stands vindicated today,” she added.

The PML-N leader also reminded the media that former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had also started committing such blunders in panic towards the twilight of his rule.

“When you are blinded by power; when you’re driven by power; when you stop using your mind; then you start making such mistakes,” Maryam added.

She said, “Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called me. He was angry and Bilawal said he was embarrassed that something like this happened to his guest and sister [Maryam],” she revealed, adding that the chief minister also called her to express his disappointment and embarrassment.

She also defended her husband’s conduct at the mausoleum of the Quaid-i-Azam which triggered his arrest. “What’s wrong with repeating the Quaid-i-Azam’s narrative and his sayings at his mausoleum? No one chanted slogans for Nawaz Sharif or Maryam Nawaz there.”

Without naming anyone, she said the same powers were scared of the ‘vote-ko-izzat-dau’ narrative that has always stolen people’s mandate. “They are the same powers that have always tried to demonize elected representatives of people – from Mother of the Nation Fatima Jinnah to Nawaz Sharif – as traitors,” she added.

She claimed that the complainant in the case against Safdar had a criminal record and that he had been declared proclaimed offender by an anti-terrorism court.

On this occasion, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman also denounced Capt Safdar’s arrest, alleging that Rangers troops had stormed into the hotel room where he was staying with his wife.

“The manner in which he was arrested is not only condemnable but also shameful. As a nation, our heads should hang in shame,” he said.

The provincial government has already given its stance that the chief minister was kept unaware of the arrest. “When the inspector general of police refused to act against him (Safdar), he was kidnapped and kept in an office of the powers that be for four hours where he was forced to order registration of FIR,” Fazal alleged.

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf condemned Capt Safdar’s arrest on behalf of the Sindh government and the PPP. He added that the entire PPP, including Asif Ali Zardari, were pained by the raid in the hotel room where Capt Safdar was staying with his wife Maryam Nawaz as it “violates our traditions”.

He reiterated that the provincial government did not have the knowledge of this episode as it had been kept unaware.

Safdar, who was taken into custody for alleged hooliganism at Mazar-e-Quaid, was set free by a court on bail while the presser was ongoing on Monday.