PM Imran Khan 'a pawn, not our target', says Maryam Nawaz

LAHORE: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz said Friday Prime Minister Imran Khan "is just a pawn and not our target", noting decisively that the incumbent, PTI-led government would be sent packing before the start of 2021.

Speaking to the media after meeting Baloch students staging a sit-in at Lahore's Charing Cross, Maryam said students "are the future of Pakistan" but those from "Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, [erstwhile] FATA, and Balochistan" have to protest after 600 of their reserved seats were taken away.

Watch: CCTV footage of Captain Safdar's arrest

"They say Punjab is the elder brother but I say Balochistan is the elder brother," she added.

Terming the move one of "incomprehensible apathy and indifference", the PML-N leader demanded the students' quota be restored. "These students are demanding the right to education and no one has met them!

"I am going to Quetta tomorrow, I will also raise the issue of students there," she added.

Maryam added that Shahbaz Sharif served Punjab wholeheartedly and that it was "not a favour but the right of the people that they got".

"Pakistan without Nawaz Sharif and Punjab without Shahbaz Sharif have become heirless," she added. "Shahbaz Sharif is being held in jail not due to corruption [charges], he is being punished for not going against his brother."

The current circumstances and events, the top PML-N leader underlined, proved that the effects of a wrong decision were coming to the fore; the prices of flour and sugar keep rising in Pakistan, she noted.

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Responding to a question about the 'Karachi incident', she said: "I don't think there is any need for an inquiry.

"Everything is very clear. The inquiry report on the 'Karachi incident' should be made public. I will definitely go if called to testify on the 'Karachi incident'," she added.

Maryam said the government's advisers were making statements to allay their embarrassment, that they have been "shocked to their core".

This government "will be out before January" 2021," she vowed.