LAHORE: PML-N leader and former information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Sunday that the party’s leadership was implicated in false cases.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore, she said that former prime minister and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif was put in jail. “But now the court’s verdict in Ashiana Housing reference proves him innocent. What a pity that he was summoned in ‘Saf Pani case, but was arrested in Ashiana Housing case,” she said, adding, “Similarly, former prime minister and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif was disqualified for life from holding any public office only because he did not receive the salary from his son.”

Marriyum said that during the hearing of one of the cases of party leader Khawaja Saad Rafique, the judge had remarked that politicians were implicated in false cases for political engineering. She was of the view that only corrupt people indulged in acts of violence which were witnessed on May 9.

She further said that free, fair and transparent elections were necessary if the issues confronting the country were to be resolved. “People are still paying the price of RTS general elections held in 2018,” the former minister opined.

Referring to the PTI government, which was formed after the general elections of 2018, she said ‘Project Imran’ was imposed at the cost of ‘developing Pakistan’.