LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervez Elahi alleged on Sunday he was brutally tortured at the behest of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz.

Talking to the media, he said he was in the backseat but then PMLN thugs came there and tortured him, fracturing his arm. “Which court should I go to? At their request, the courts are open even at night. There is no court for the oppressed. I leave my case to Allah Almighty.”

Pervez Elahi said that as the Speaker, he always gave an equal opportunity to PMLN members in the Assembly, issued production orders for PMLN’s jailed leaders. He said that PML-N members Sohail Shaukat Butt and Malik Waheed attacked him as ordered by Hamza Shehbaz. 

“I am still the speaker. The thugs who came to do so kept chanting slogans of Hamza! Hamza! The Speaker Punjab Assembly’s Media Coordinator Iqbal Chaudhry was also severely tortured. He fell down from the dais while trying to save me,” Pervez added.

Meanwhile, PMLQ President and former prime minister Ch Shujaat Hussain strongly condemned “the PMLN’s shameful attitude towards Speaker Chaudhry Pervez Elahi in the Punjab Assembly.”

He said that the manner in which the Constitution and the law were mocked at in the Punjab Assembly was unprecedented in the parliamentary and political history of Pakistan. “The black events of today would never be forgotten, which polluted our politics with violence in such a way that even mothers, sisters, daughters were not spared. They were abused, slapped and their hairs were pulled.

“Such a bizarre example of disrespect in politics has never been seen before,” Ch Shujaat added.

He said Speaker Ch Pervez Elahi was targeted and tortured. He said he was saddened that all this was done with a person who did not deserve it at all.

Ch Shujaat said there was a Quranic command that Allah is gracious and Allah loves those who do good. Ch Pervez Elahi always treated the Sharif family well in difficult times. During the Musharraf era, when the two brothers went to Saudi Arabia with their families, Hamza Shehbaz was alone here. Pervez Elahi helped Hamza Shehbaz in every possible way; even his factories continued functioning. Hamza once complained to Ch Pervez Elahi that the intelligence people were chasing him. Even as the speaker, Ch Pervez Elahi not only issued production orders for Hamza but also allotted separate rooms for his family meetings in the Assembly building and took care of him in every possible way.

Similarly, when Aleem Khan was caught by NAB, he complained to Ch Pervez Elahi that in NAB custody he had to line up for toilet. Pervez Elahi got his complaint resolved immediately. “I remember that Ch Pervez Elahi had taken stern notice of an incident of police misconduct with Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari and the assembly session was adjourned for several days. The IGP personally came to the assembly and apologised.” Ch Shujaat Hussain said that “we and our family have established good traditions in politics and social relations, but now it seems that politics has gone to personal animosity and beatings. What are we giving to Pakistan and the people especially the youth that is what I will say: O’Quaid! The nation is ashamed [of what they did].”