Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz) vice-president, and Jemima Goldsmith, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s former wife, had a moment on Twitter. The two took potshots at each other in a duel that started over Imran Khan targeting Maryam’s father and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

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The Twitter spat started after Imran Khan criticised Nawaz Sharif for attending his grandson Junaid’s (Maryam’s son) polo match in the UK while he was there in 2019 for medical treatment. “The poor should go to jail and the powerful get NROs (National Reconciliation Ordinance) and go park themselves abroad and watch their grandson’s polo match,” Khan said at a rally.

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Maryam Sharif, 47, shot back with a sharp attack at a rally in PoK, saying that Khan’s children were being ‘raised in the lap of Jews’. “I didn’t want to bring children into it, but the way you’re talking, you’re going to get a befitting reply… He’s Nawaz Sharif’s grandson, not Goldsmith’s. He’s Nawaz Sharif’s grandson, he’s not being raised in the lap of Jews,”

She was referring to Khan’s sons with Jemima Goldsmith, a jew by faith. The two sons, Sulaiman (24) and Kasim (22) were brought up in London after Goldsmith and Khan separated in 2004 after nine years of marriage.

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Jemima Goldsmith,47, stung by the reference to her sons, shot back and posted on Twitter. “My kids are ‘being raised in the lap of the Jews,’ announced Maryam Sharif today. I left Pakistan in 2004 after a decade of anti-semitic attacks by the media and politicians (weekly death threats and protests outside my house). But still, it continues,” she tweeted.

Not the one to take the attack lying down, Maryam retorted that Jemima had her ex to blame for the showdown. “I have absolutely no interest in you, your sons, or your personal lives because I have better things to do and say but if your ex drags in the families of others out of spite, others will have nastier things to say. You have only your ex to blame.”

The spat saw several other users commenting. “Your family is directly involved in corruption and looting the wealth of Pakistan. Leave this woman and her kids alone. Her kids are not PLAYING polo on Pakistan’s money,” a user wrote.