Safdar held amid tough resistance by workers

[ahlam1399]

RAWALPINDI: A three-member team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Sunday arrested former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law Captain (R) Muhammad Safdar after working their way through a human shield put up by the PML-N workers to protect their leader from arrest.He will be sent to the Adiala Jail on Monday (today). Nawaz Sharif, Safdar and Maryam were Friday handed down jail terms by an accountability court in the infamous Avenfield properties case.Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz also on Sunday announced that she and her father former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will land in Lahore on Friday.”We will land in Lahore in a few days,” Maryam said while speaking to the media in London.The former premier’s daughter vowed, “We will lead the struggle for democracy in Pakistan. We will sacrifice for the benefit of the nation and the generations to come.”“No matter what they do, voters cannot be stopped,” she asserted. She said, “The movement to ‘respect the vote’ has reached a decisive phase.”In a veiled reference to former president General (R) Pervez Musharraf, Maryam said, “Some people use backache as an excuse to flee abroad.”“There are also some leaders who preferred fleeing Pakistan to escape punishment,” she further upheld. Stating that the “nation is behind Mian Sb”, Maryam said, “Mian Sb is the first leader who is set to return to Pakistan to face his sentence.”Maryam’s announcement came after PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif chaired a high-level party huddle in Model Town to finalise a future course of action in light of party supremo Nawaz’s return to the country.The meeting decided that the father-daughter duo should land in Lahore upon their return, sources said.Before courting arrest at the party’s election office on the Sixth Road, Safdar led a rally of supporters.Some of the die-hard workers even laid down before the NAB vehicle and pushed and shoved the NAB officials to frustrate their attempt to arrest their embattled leader.The rally passed through College Road, Fowara Chowk, Namak Mandi, Bara Bazaar, Dalgaran Bazaar, Trunk Bazaar, Sarafa Bazaar and Committee Chowk.The PML-N activists and supporters raised slogans of ‘Nawaz Sharif Zindabad’, ‘Dekho Kon Aya, Sher Aya Sher Aya’ and showered rose petals over him.Local PML-N local leaders, including Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, Chaudhry Tanveer, Shakil Awan, Malik Ibrar, Chaudhry Danyal, Muhammad Hanif, Sardar Naseem, Ziaullah Shah and several others, were leading the rally on Liaquat Road when Safdar suddenly disembarked from a vehicle and joined them amid cheers of supporters.NAB Rawalpindi Deputy Director Mehboob Alam and Assistant Directors Adnan Butt and Imran Dogar accompanied by the police dashed to Liaquat Bagh to arrest Safdar but the workers resisted their leader’s arrest.The PML-N leaders and workers decided that Safdar will first go to the party’s election office on the Sixth Road where he will surrender himself to the NAB team.NAB Deputy Director Mehboob Alam and Assistant Director Adnan Butt took Safdar into custody after he appeared at Sixth Road office.The NAB Rawalpindi team shifted him to the Rawalpindi office in the vehicle of Senator Chaudhry Tanveer from where he was taken to the NAB Headquarters in Islamabad.The NAB will present him before the Accountability Court on Monday (today).Talking to the media before courting arrest, Safdar said he was there to court arrest while he was among his supporters.“Time has come to decide which way the country has to tread,” he said.“Today we have to decide how the country will be run; I am surrendering myself in order to set a foundation for democracy,” he added.He called upon the nation to support Nawaz Sharif in his fight for the country.Safdar said he was ready to spend 100 years for Nawaz Sharif being his worker.Earlier in a Hindko audio message, Safdar said he will comply with the party’s decision and offer himself for arrest. “Initially, I had planned to surrender in Mansehra but will be surrendering from a different city in accordance with the party’s plan,” he said.“It is a matter of honour to present myself before the authorities. I will respect the party’s decision.”Later the NAB issued a press statement saying that Captain (R) Muhammad Safdar after continued raids of NAB four Investigation teams at his houses in Abbottabad, Mansehra and Haripur decided to surrender before the NAB.“If he was law-abiding, he should have surrendered before the NAB the very first day after announcement of judgement by the Accountability Court, Islamabad,” said the NAB spokesman.The spokesman said Captain (R) Safdar was a proven convict and corrupt person who was posing himself as a pious man which was contrary to his assets beyond known sources of income.“The media is requested to kindly not air his live speeches which are against the law and code of conduct of Pemra and do not try to glorify him,” he said.The NAB spokesman said the NAB will also start legal proceedings against all those who had provided illegal shelter to a convicted person and corrupt person and all those who tried to stop and created hurdles in his smooth arrest as per law.“The NAB reserves the right to seek video of live coverage and recordings of all TV channels from the Pemra in order to identify the culprits and to proceed against them as per law,” the NAB spokesman said.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/E2jxTR6rnJs

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