ISLAMABAD - The central leadership of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has criticised the government for registering a treason case against their party leaders and termed it a move to divert public attention from real issues of the country.  

A case was registered on Monday against PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and other party leaders for allegedly ‘conspiring’ against the country and state institutions.

While speaking to reporters outside the Parliament Lodges here yesterday, PML-N leader and former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that the FIR was “another black mark in the fictional history books of Pakistan”, adding that it had a “unique position among allegations of treason” in the history of the country.

He said it seems that the real problems of the country i.e. inflation and unemployment have been resolved because federal ministers have started levelling treason allegations on opposition leaders.

“If speaking about the supremacy of constitution, election rigging, revealing government’s deal on Kashmir and criticising its poor performance is a treason then we accept it”, maintained the former premier.  

He, however, advised the federal ministers that if they have courage then they should not use the shoulder of Badar Rasheed to register cases against them but use their own name in the FIR.

He said it was the time to speak about the performance of this government but it is taking cover behind such tactics.

The former prime minister said that they are ready to face the treason case and if the government wants to arrest them they are also ready for that but he demanded their trial should be held publicly.

Meanwhile, PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal said that the government’s alleged “incompetency” could not be hidden by declaring PML-N leaders as traitors.

He said today, the people who built Pakistan, increased electricity generation, negotiated China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and lifted the economy are traitors and people who brought growth of economy in negative are patriotic.

The former interior minister said the FIR claimed that PML-N wanted to build a narrative against institutions to detract attention from the Kashmir issue but in fact, “we ask the government about what happened in Naya Pakistan that India got the courage to revoke the territory’s disputed status.

He said people want to know the reality but whoever asks this question is deemed a traitor.

“If asking questions about inflation, unemployment and the government’s failed foreign policy is treason, then we are not ashamed but proud of it,” he said, adding: “People of Pakistan know that who made this country and who destroyed the country.”

PML-N Secretary Information Marriyum Aurangzeb in her tweet also said that the registration of the case was ac proof of the fact that the “selected” government was “panicking”.