once again a fugitive sitting in London is maligning the state institutions”.Nawaz, who was allowed to fly to London for treatment late last year, broke his long silence a day before and claimed that the opposition was up not against Prime Minister Imran Khan but against those who had brought him into power in the 2018 elections.

Nawaz Sharif’s speech and the story published in Times of India reflect the same agenda, the premier said while speaking to members of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Monday.

"Sharif’s PML-N has once again promoted the Indian agenda. New Delhi wanted to vilify Pakistan’s state institution ahead of the UN General Assembly session which opened on Sept 15 and will continue until Sept 30."

The prime minister added that New Delhi wanted to take the global spotlight off its reign of terror in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOKJ), which has been under a draconian lockdown for more than a year now.

Indian media has been spewing venom against Pakistan since Sharif’s rant against state institutions, he said. An international lobby has been active against Pakistan’s state institutions, he added.

“We will not allow anyone to malign our institutions.”

Participating in the PPP-hosted multiparty conference from London via video link on Sunday, the PML-N supreme leader pledged that his party would endorse whatever course of action the grand huddle decided.

He urged the APC participants to shift away from traditional politics and hammer out a decisive course of action to bring about a real change.

The Sharif family patriarch, who has recently been declared a proclaimed offender by a court, reiterated his claim that the mandate of the people was stolen in the last general elections.

“The current government, which is relying on crutches, wouldn’t have been formed if the results of the elections weren’t tampered with,” he claimed. “Handing over power to a few people is treachery.”

Sharif said people were robbed of their mandate with impunity without taking into consideration the detrimental effects of such actions on the country. “Pakistan has been turned into a laboratory for these experiments.”

Upping the ante against the PTI-led government, the opposition parties demanded immediate resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan, while announcing an alliance – the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) – that will begin a country-wide protest against the government.

Through a 26-point resolution and a seven-point action plan issued after the APC in a press conference, the opposition parties put forward their demands, including free, fair, transparent elections without any role of the armed forces and agencies.

They also announced their action plan to build pressure on the government. In the first phase, the opposition parties would muster support from lawyers, traders, farmers, students, civil society, media and people and hold joint rallies in all the provinces by October

In the second phase, they will hold bigger protest rallies in December and will go for a “decisive long march” to Islamabad in January 2021.

After a day-long grand huddle, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman along with others read the resolution and the action plan.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former president Asif Ali Zardari as well as the top leadership of the PPP, the PML-N, the JUI-F, the NP, the ANP, the QWP, PkMAP, the BNP-M and Jamiat Ahle Hadees spoke at the APC.