LAHORE: Maryam Nawaz, Capt (retd) Safdar Awan and other Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) leaders were booked on Tuesday for damaging public order by “causing trouble for citizens, blocking roads, unnecessarily using loudspeakers and microphones and violating coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs)” on the day of the Gujranwala rally, in a case registered at the Shahdara police station.
The PML-N leaders’ violations come under the Punjab Sound Systems (Regulation) Act 2015 and Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960.
The FIR states that the Shahdara Chowk was blocked by containers without the concerned authorities’ permission that affected the flow of traffic resulting in citizens being stranded on the road for hours.
“There were two big cranes and a truck in front of the caravan, because of which, the traffic on Shahdara Chowk, coming from all directions, was disrupted and a painful situation was created for the public”, the report said.
Besides PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and Captain (retd) Safdar, Malik Riaz, Samiullah Khan, Malik Pervez, Ali Pervez Malik, Saif-ul-Muluk Khokhar have been nominated, along with 800 to 900 workers, for chanting slogans against the government and its institutions, the report added.
It also said that despite multiple threat advisories issued by security agencies to the PML-N leadership, party vice-president Maryam Nawaz came out of her car and addressed workers.
Maryam then ignored security SOPs and addressed the workers, exposing herself and putting her life in danger.
Maryam, in her address, asked party workers and leaders to “be ready to send Imran Khan’s government home”, adding that it incited them and they started “extreme sloganeering against the government”.
According to the FIR, none of the leaders or workers were wearing a mask or maintaining social distancing. Traffic was also badly blocked from New Ravi Bridge to the matchsticks factory on GT Road and from Shahdara Chowk to Begum Kot Chowk [because of the rally], it said.
