ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) senior leader Khawaja Asif on Wedne-sday said that Prime Miniser Imran Khan was behind his arrest, and termed his arrest an attempt to break his party and to weaken his party’s supreme leader, Nawaz Sharif.

Asif said this, while talking to reporters after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) produced him before Accountability Court-I Judge Muhammad Bashir for obtaining his transit remand.

The NAB arrested Asif on Tuesday in a case pertaining to accumulating assets beyond known sources of income.

“I am 100 percent sure that Imran Khan is behind my arrest,” he said.

He said that the efforts to break the PML-N had been continuing for the last two and a half years to weaken former premier Nawaz Sharif.

When he was asked about the PML-N Vice President, Maryam Nawaz, that Asif had himself told her that someone had told him to stop supporting Nawaz Sharif and then all cases against him would be ended, he said that this is what, was being told to all our leaders for the last two and a half years.

Asif said that he was given a charge sheet that your assets had increased.

The NAB did not investigate him, he said.

I have been facing this case for over two years, first in Rawalpindi then in Lahore, he said.

Earlier, the NAB officials produced him before Accountability Court-I Judge Muhammad Bashir for obtaining his transit remand.

At the start, the judge asked the NAB prosecutor, Sohail Arif, that in which court Asif will be produced.

At this, the prosecutor replied that the accused, Asif will be produced before the Accountability Court, Lahore.

The NAB prosecutor requested the court to grant two days transit remand of Asif.

At this, the defence counsel told the court that the total travel between Islamabad and Lahore takes only four hours.

“Why prosecution requesting for a two-day transit remand?” he questioned.

Asif’s counsel Barrister Jahangir Khan Jadoon, objecting to the NAB’s plea requested the court to release Asif as the case against him had no grounds.

An inquiry against Asif was initiated in the NAB Rawalpindi and then it was closed in 2018.

He further argued before the court that the NAB had neither provided arrest warrants, nor grounds for the arrest of Asif.

Asif also told the court that the NAB had given him an unsigned arrest warrant and ground of arrest.

The judge directed the NAB to provide Asif’s counsel the arrest warrant and grounds for the arrest. The court granted one-day transit remand to the NAB of Asif.

According to the court order, the judge said, “I have gone through the application, warrant of arrests and medical report of the accused namely Khawaja Muhammad Asif is to be produced before concerned Accountability Court, Lahore. In the view of the distance between Islamabad and Lahore, transit remand is granted subject to medical fitness as such that investigation officer is directed to produce the accused before Accountability Court on or before December 31.” PML-N leaders Ahsan Iqbal, Rana Sana Ullah, Marriyum Aurangzeb, and Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha, were present in the court room during the hearing and were allowed to meet Asif.

Talking outside the Accountability Court, Iqbal said that the NAB has arrested Asif in a “fake and baseless” case.

PM Imran Khan was unhappy with Asif over his statement in the National Assembly, he said, adding that the NAB has become a subordinate organization of Imran Khan and was making baseless cases against the opposition leaders.

He said that former director general (DG) Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Bashir Memon during an interview said that Imran Khan had asked him to register a case against Asif and arrest him.

He said that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had exonerated Asif in this case in which the NAB last arrested him. The NAB Rawalpindi had closed this due to lack of evidence but the chairman NAB had transferred it to the NAB Lahore due to “ill intention”, he said.

To a question about former premier Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country, he said that the government had sent him abroad for treatment.

Nawaz Sharif will return to the country as per the advice of his doctors, he said.

Regarding participation of the PML-N in the Senate and the by-elections and its future line of action, he said that a final decision in that regard would be taken up in the upcoming Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) meeting to be held on January 01.

Iqbal said that Imran Khan’s assets and sources of income should be investigated as Khan despite residing in a 300-kanal house was paying less tax then him.

Khan has regularised his illegal house by misusing his authority, he said.

He said that he and other PML-N leaders including Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza Shehbaz, Khaqan Abbasi, Miftah Ismail, and Rana Sanullah had been sent behind bars in different fake cases but no one was taking notice of the sugar, flour, wheat scandals, Peshawar metro bus, Malam Jabba and the billion tree case.

Iqbal said that PM Imran Khan wanted to politicise the country’s security institutions.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020