Thursday’s appearance: PM asks party workers to stay away from JIT secretariat

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has asked Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)’s passionate supporters to refrain from assembling at the Federal Judicial Academy on Thursday, when the premier will make his appearance in front of the Panama case Joint Investigation Team (JIT).

In a special message to party workers across the country, the premier said you [PML-N workers] are our strength. The prime minister also asked them to remember him in their prayers, relayed the prime minister’s special secretary Asif Kirmani on Tuesday.

Kirmani explained that the premier was informed of party workers’ ‘wishes’ to assemble at the academy as a show of support.

Also on Tuesday, banners expressing support for the prime minister sprang up in the capital’s Red Zone. They bore pictures of the premier, his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and daughter Maryam Nawaz.

The person behind putting up the posters was identified as senator Abbas Afridi. Afridi recently retired as a senator and minister in the federal government.

Earlier on Tuesday, PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi had visited the academy — declared the secretariat of the JIT — to supervise 'arrangements' ahead of the premier’s appearance. Talking to Geo News, Abbasi had said party workers and leaders would wholeheartedly welcome their leader on Thursday.

The JIT has directed the prime minister to appear before it in light of its investigation into the premier’s family’s financial dealings abroad.