Man accosts Sheikh Rasheed outside NA, alleges politician owes him money

ISLAMABAD: A man, identified as Malik Noor Awan, accosted Awami Muslim League leader Sheikh Rasheed outside the National Assembly Thursday morning claiming the politician owes him money.

The incident occurred near Gate 1 of the Parliament House. The man kept insisting that Rasheed return his money and held the politicians hand forcefully.

Rasheed denied that he owed any money to Malik Awan remarked: “You must promise me that you will pay up.” 

After the incident, Rasheed went into the Parliament. “I will complain about this to the [National Assembly] speaker.”

Later, Rasheed filed a case against Noor Awan at Secretariat Police Station.

Awan alleged that Rasheed bought a car from him but has yet to pay him around Rs20 million for it. Speaking to the media, Awan said “I am a very poor man and Rs20.2 million is a big amount. It’s my hard earned money.” 

He also claimed that I ran into Rasheed at the airport but he ignored him. “He does not even attend my phone calls.”

Addressing a press conference later, Rasheed said “I have said before that parliament lacks security." He also demanded the presiding officer to arrest the man.

The politician alleged that the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, is behind the incident. "If anything happens to me then they [PML-N] will be responsible for it," he added. 

Following the incident, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar met Rasheed inside Parliament. Nisar said that relevant measures will be taken upon the advice of the speaker.

The person has been taken into custody, he added.

On the issue, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah remarked “this is an important matter and it should be investigated.” This should be revealed how did the person enter the parliament, he said, and asked “how did he get the permission to enter the parliament?”

Several pictures of Malik Noor Awan who has admitted that he is a PML-N worker emerged on social media where he can be seen with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, President Mamnoon Hussain, other PML-N leaders and even former Chief of Army Staff General (retd) Raheel Sharif. 

Incident was pre-planned

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan said that the incident which happened with Sheikh Rasheed was pre-planned. 

Khan warned that his party could also adopt the strategy being used by the PML-N and take to the streets in protest to have issues resolved. Imran Khan added that the PTI had the biggest strength in terms of street power in the country.