Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday while lambasting the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has announced to consult all the opposition parties to bring an in-house change by launching an anti government drive within the parliament and outside the parliament. Addressing a press conference senior party leaders on Tuesday here at National Press Club Islamabad also questioned the merits of the judgement against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and termed the ongoing process of accountability in the country was discriminating against opposition leaders but favouring the government.
A day after Nawaz Sharif was handed seven years in jail in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference, an assortment of PML-N leaders including Ahsan Iqbal, Mushahid Ullah Khan, Rana Sanaullah, Maryam Aurangzeb, Mushahid Hussain Syed and Muhammad Zubair took turns to criticise the verdict as well as the federal government. They said that court verdict is not clear when and where Nawaz Sharif has done corruption and the decision was based on assumptions.
They said that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was still operating like it was working in former dictator Pervez Musharraf era targeting opposition parties while relaxing those joining the government party. They said that Nawaz Sharif was sentenced to jail in setting up of a company established in 2001 when Nawaz Sharif was not holding any public office.
Addressing the media PML-N leader and former governor Sindh Mohammad Zubair urged Supreme Court and NAB to start the same accountability drive with the same speed against the members of PTI involved in various corruption cases as they take up the cases of PML-N leaders.
Zubair said that how PM Imran Khan's sister Aleema Khan and PTI stalwart Jahangir Tareen made properties abroad and by which means money was transferred, the government needs to answer these questions.
Mohammad Zubair urged the prime minister to also hold his own party leaders accountable, especially those who "have admitted themselves that they had offshore companies".
"We demand from NAB and the courts that the sense of urgency they have shown against the PML-N, we want to see the same against the PTI leaders. Zubair questioned why the case of the prime minister's sister Aleema Khanum was wrapped up with "just a fine".
"If it was solved with a penalty then it means that she had done something wrong," Zubair said. "Why isn't the same penalty solution offered to the PML-N? Our question is how she sent money abroad from here. The PM should set an example here.
"Moreover, you have ordered audits of Lahore Metro, Multan Metro and Pindi/Islamabad Metro but why not Peshawar Metro? Why is there such a distinction? These dual standards are not acceptable and we demand of the NAB that if they want to establish their credibility, there should be an across-the-board accountability."
Zubair demanded that the PTI leaders make complete disclosures of their earnings, money trails and property acquisitions.
Speaking on the occasion, former federal minister Ahsan Iqbal said, "The first case in which Nawaz Sharif was disqualified, the crime ascertained was that he did not take salary from his son,". "And this time the allegation levelled is that 'since your son sent you money, therefore you stand disqualified', he added.
"Now I want to raise this question that in the Middle East up to 3.5 million Pakistanis remits money to their families, so would they be considered their business partners or co-owners? If any son sends money to his parents, will they be held guilty?
"Nawaz Sharif was ascertained the owner of that company simply on the basis that his son sent him money which is a practice that is done by millions of Pakistanis", Ahsan Iqbal continued.
"Similarly, the ongoing accountability process is basically a selected prime minister committing a selected accountability. PML-N legislators are being arrested whereas the PTI and its allies, no matter how severe the allegations on them, they are free to do anything.
"PML-N leaders are arrested during inquiry but PTI leaders, who even have references filed against them, are free and the law is not in motion against them. Nawaz Sharif appeared 165 times in the court but PTI leaders' cases get delayed at their leisure. They are given dates as per their preferences.
"No one can arrest PTI leaders. All the summons and arrests are for PML-N leaders because this government is on ventilator. Another form of convention or Q-league is imposed on Pakistan in the form of PTI."
Iqbal claimed that the corruption being committed under the PTI government is three times more than that of the previous eras but that "no NAB, no court is taking a suo motu notice of it".
Former Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that Nawaz Sharif was convicted in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills corruption reference but acquitted in Flagship Investments reference which is a distinction "I am unable to understand".
He claimed that the evidence and defence was the same in both the cases, adding that it is strange for "Qatari to be halal in one and haram in other". However, Sanaullah seemed hopeful of "getting relief from the courts just as we had before".
"We respect the NAB as an institution of justice," he said. "We can still have our reservations against an individual." Sanaullah, however, slammed an unnamed individual from Rawalpindi for "acting as the spokesperson for the NAB and the judiciary".
Senator Mushahidullah echoed Sanaullah's sentiments regarding the individual from Rawalpindi as well as another from Jhelum. He said that Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid and Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in private two days prior to the Al-Azizia Steel Mills verdict were talking about the decision. How would PTI government's ministers were aware of the decision, he asked. He said that accountability drive was on in Punjab and Sindh while no one is concerned of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) where provincial government of PTI first established accountability Bureau and then disbanded which costs Rs 900 million to the national kitty.
Musadiq Malik, former spokesperson to the PM, drew a parallel between the incumbent government and the Adolph Hitler-led Nazi Germany. "There is a ban on politics, on journalism and every dissenter who questions is being arrested," Malik claimed.
He wondered why Sharif was handed a prison sentence even when "the NAB had itself admitted in court that Sharif was neither a shareholder, nor a director or a signatory."
"I pray that they do not end the way Hitler and Mussolini did ... because their conducts are similar," Malik concluded.
PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, while responding to a question on restrictions on the media, claimed that the "government wants to shut down all private channels so that only PTV remains, which could then keep their failures and corruption hidden". She added that no government official was allowed to disagree with the PTI government and no media outlet is allowed to print or broadcast news items against the government. If anybody from public servant to media persons is not following the PTI set lines he/she is forced to discontinue the job and stay at home, Marriyum maintained.
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