Maryam holds ‘cabal of 5’ responsible for country’s woes as PML-N kicks off reorganisation tour

Among the “cabal”, she said, were PTI Chairman Imran Khan, former chief justices of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa. She did not name the other two, simply referring to them as the two “crutches” of Imran.

A cabinet member told Dawn last month that PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif had tasked some senior party leaders to start working on framing a ‘complete chargesheet’ on Imran and those of his facilitators in the establishment (a former army chief and two ex-spy chiefs) and the judiciary (a former chief justice) so that the entire party could target them in unison during the Punjab election campaign.

Addressing a workers’ convention in Bahawalpur today, Maryam said it was necessary to understand why the country had come to a point where it had to take difficult decisions.

She said people should be grateful that the country had returned from the precipice of a disaster after four years under the PTI, adding that, otherwise, the “cabal of five had made plans [to rule] for the next 12 years”.

“Imagine what would have happened to Pakistan in the next 12 years if the cabal of five had remained [in power].”

She said the “cabal of players and amateurs” had wrecked the economy and launched “suicide attacks” on it.

Maryam said she would name and share pictures of the cabal and they would be made public “whether that is Khosa or the dam guy (Nisar) or Imran or his two crutches”.

She alleged that the quintet looted the country together day and night. “Someone was taking diamond rings, someone was taking plots, someone was making money through the land, someone was sending money to Dubai and someone made a house on several hundred kanals in Chakwal,” Maryam added.

The PML-N leader said that it was her party’s responsibility to save the country from the lot.

On the issue of rising terrorism in the country and Monday’s Peshawar blast, Maryam said the PML-N had eliminated militancy in the country and questioned why it was cropping up again.

In an apparent reference to former Inter Services Intelligence chief Faiz Hameed, she questioned why the one whom Imran called his “eyes and ears” and who was posted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had “opened doors for terrorists”.

She said if the person who was Imran’s “eyes and ears” had focused on his actual job, Pakistan would not have to see the conditions today.

Maryam also lashed out at Imran and the PTI, saying they had been in government in KP for the last decade and questioned what capacity building they had done for the counter-terrorism department.

Regarding the upcoming Punjab elections, she said the PML-N had now stepped into the campaign field and would “clean sweep” the polls.