Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Javed Latif has claimed that former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar secretly facilitated the 124-day-long demonstration jointly organised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) in 2014.
Latif, who was part of a three-guest panel at anchorperson Hamid Mir’s TV show last night, said that Nisar released the “violent protesters” who had attacked parliament and state-owned broadcaster Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV).
According to him, Nisar facilitated the entrance of protesters in the heavily guarded Red Zone which houses the president and prime minister’s houses in addition to several other highly-sensitive secretariats.
“Nisar’s disagreement with Nawaz Sharif’s GT Road rally was also part of his plan. He continuously opposed the party policy on certain important matters and today we all know about his current political standing and reputation,” Latif said.
It merits a mention here that since his association with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in the mid-80s, Nisar was Sharif’s go-to man in matters involving the country’s powerful establishment — until he fell out of favor as a result of his advocacy of a non-confrontational policy with the military following Sharif’s judicial ouster in 2017.
Hailing from a respected military family himself, Nisar had allegedly played a key role in the appointment of retired General Pervez Musharraf as the Chief of the Army Staff in 1998.
Last week, PML-N leader and former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also commented on the protest, saying it was very obvious that “PTI was not the architect of the dharna”.
“I don’t want to name anyone but it seemed like that establishment was not happy with our government. Nobody told me but it is my personal observation that former DG ISI Zaheer-ul-Islam was behind the organisation of PTI’s dharna,” Abbasi claimed on journalist Nadeem Malik’s show.
