PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz launched a diatribe against two sitting judges and two former judges of the Supreme Court alleging that they hatched a conspiracy against her father Nawaz Sharif—who was disqualified from holding the office of prime minister in 2017.

She alleged that now two sitting judges had taken it upon themselves to bring Imran Khan back into power.

At the gathering, the PML-N displayed the pictures of Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed, two former chief justices of Pakistan (CJPs) Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa, and two sitting judges Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi.

“The group of five is responsible for the country’s situation. [Former chief of ISI] Gen (retd) Faiz was the leader of the group,” she said while addressing a party workers’ convention in Sargodha on Thursday.

She claimed when Nawaz Sharif was experiencing rising popularity after the 2013 elections, Faid Hameed decided to undermine him.

“Nawaz Sharif’s stature has increased. He has to be ‘cut to size’,” she quoted Faiz Hameed as saying.

Former CJP Khosa and Justice Ahsan were part of the five-member bench that disqualified Sharif from holding public office in the Panama Papers case, while ex-CJP Nisar was accused of denying bails to Sharif and his daughter Maryam before the 2018 general elections 2018.

Moreover, the PMLN said this week that Justice Naqvi has a biased attitude toward the party.

At the Sargodha gathering, Maryam alleged that the conspirators plotted to bring Imran to power in 2018. “When Imran’s 2014 sit-in failed, conspirators picked judges from the judiciary and presented Imran as pious person. Imran is the frontman of the conspiracy.”

She said that the establishment that brought the PTI chief to power in 2018 has gone home.

However, she claimed that two judges had taken it upon themselves to bring Imran back to power.

Maryam, who is tasked with reorganising the party, said that the PML-N was not afraid of elections and the party was preparing for polls.

But an election date from the court is not acceptable to her. She directed her criticism at the nine-member bench hearing a suo motu notice on the possible election date.

“You have sat to outline the responsibility of the election commission. Do this. But, have you ever inquired about the basic rights,” she said.

She urged the judges to know more about the former judges, who she claimed supported Imran and helped ousted his father.

The PML-N leader claimed that “two controversial judges” were part of the nine-member bench, adding: “Why does the court not know that match-fixing is taking place.”

We have video of Arshad Malik: Sanaullah

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that they have a “video” of former accountability judge Arshad Malik, however, they don’t want to dishonor the judiciary.

Malik, who passed away in December 2020, had convicted Sharif in the Al Azizia reference in 2018 and sentenced him to seven years in jail. He had acquitted the PML-N supremo in the Flagship reference.

But, the Lahore High Court’s administration committee in July 2020 had removed him from service on charges of misconduct relating to a video scandal that broke in 2019. The scandal broke in 2019 during a press conference where Maryam played a secretly recorded video that she claimed featured a conversation between Nasir Butt, a man she described as a loyal fan of her father, and Malik.

It apparently showed Malik confessed that he had been “pressured and blackmailed” to convict Sharif in the Al Azizia reference.

“We should see justice being served. We still have the Arshad Malik video. But we don’t want to decrease the stature of the judiciary,” Sanaullah said at the convention before Maryam’s address.