PM Imran Khan is 'deluded' if he thinks he can 'scare' Sharif family, says Shehbaz Sharif

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's leader of the opposition Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said Prime Minister Imran Khan would be a "deluded" man if he thinks that he can "scare" the Sharif family by arresting his niece Maryam Nawaz.
Maryam, the 45-year-old daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested by the national accountability bureau (NAB) on Thursday in a corruption case. Shehbaz Sharif's nephew Yousuf Abbas Sharif was also arrested. An accountability court remanded Maryam in the custody of the NAB till August 21.
Attacking Prime Minister Imran Khan during his speech on the floor of the national assembly, Shehbaz repeated his claim that the government and the anti-graft agency NAB "were in an alliance".
He regretted that Maryam was arrested in front of her father Nawaz Sharif. The former three-time Prime Minister is in jail serving a seven-year sentence in a corruption case.
"Maryam was arrested in front of her father and uncle. Hamza Shehbaz and Maryam Nawaz's arrests prove once again that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government is complicit with NAB," Shehbaz said.
A day earlier, Pakistan Peoples Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had vehemently denounced the government on Maryam's arrest and walked out of the session in protest.
Maryam, the vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Party was arrested in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case from Kot Lakhpat jail, where she was visiting her father Nawaz Sharif.
Shehbaz said: "This is not the first time we have suffered this injustice. My hair has turned white, we have seen all of this before."
"Imran Khan Niazi is deluded if he thinks he can scare us with injustice and cruelty, that he can force Nawaz Sharif and his family to give in," the PML-N president added.
"She (Maryam) had been appearing before the NAB regularly. She had only asked the NAB officials to allow her to appear at 3pm as she had to meet her father in prison," he told the assembly.
"These arrests are meant to divert the nation's attention from the Kashmir issue, the failing economy and soaring drug prices," the former Punjab chief minister said.
"All I want to say is that though the government is pushing us against the wall, it will be them who will be crying at the end," he said.
Minister of state for parliamentary affairs Ali Muhammad Khan refuted Shehbaz's allegations that government was "in league with NAB" and said: "You should explain in the court why you received billions of dollars from abroad. The government of Pakistan cannot answer the NAB."