LAHORE: Strongly reacting to Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s statement that she would be ‘ruthless’ against her political opponents if they resorted to taking law into their hands, incarcerated PTI central Punjab President Dr Yasmin Rashid commented that she had always been ‘ruthless.’

“The whole system has been ruined, people’s mandate stolen, women incarcerated to make your wish of becoming chief minister come true, what else is ruthlessness,” Dr Rashid stated in a written statement delivered to media persons on her appearance in the court on Thursday.

Lauding the Supreme Court judgment for correcting historic wrong by accepting that the murder trial of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was unfair and lacked evidence, Dr Rashid said she as well as other political prisoners were waiting for justice for the last 10 months.

Hoping to get justice in her lifetime, she said, “We do hope that it will not take us 50 years to get justice”.

MOONIS: Former federal minister Moonis Elahi berated the CM for announcing to “finalise Sargodha division’s first state-of-the-art Institute of Cardiology”.

Mr Elahi said his father Parvez Elahi’s provincial government cabinet had approved the institute in December 2022. He asserted that the project was stopped by caretaker CM Mohsin Naqvi, who was a nominee of the PML-N.

Chiding her further, Mr Elahi said he was assuming that “you (Ms Nawaz) understand English although people have serious doubts about your qualifications.”

Meanwhile, newly-inducted Punjab information minister Azma Bokhari categorically rejected the propaganda being propagated by the PTI about the Sargodha Institute of Cardiology. She said the chief minister and her team would undertake such projects which would eliminate PTI politically.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2024