ISLAMABAD: The top leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) will be gathering here on Thursday (today) to discuss their future strategy on the issue of Panama Papers leaks.

This will be the first formal meeting of the party to be presided over by PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on the issue after the failure of the government-opposition parliamentary committee to reach a consensus on terms of reference (ToR) for the proposed judicial commission.

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar told Dawn on Wednesday that the party chairman, who had been staying in the capital for two days, would also receive a briefing from the four-member committee formed by the party in April to contact other opposition parties in an effort to devise a common strategy on the Panama Papers leaks issue.

Mr Babar said the party chairman would be told about the issues which had caused a deadlock between the government and the opposition on the issue of Panama commission. Besides this, he said, Mr Bhutto-Zardari would also be apprised of the deliberations that the opposition parties had so far held within themselves on the issue.

In April, the PPP had formed two committees – one to approach all other political parties to take them on board over its demand for the parliamentary probe and the other to advise the party leadership on the legal issues involved in carrying out investigations into the Panama leaks documents.

The first committee comprises Syed Khurshid Shah, Aitzaz Ahsan, Saeed Ghani and Ijaz Jakhrani whereas Aitzaz Ahsan, Farooq Naek, Nayyar Bokhari and Latif Khosa are the members of the legal committee on the issue.

The meeting is being held three days after the opposition parties announced that they would have no option but to launch street protests if the government did not agree to review its position on the formulation of the ToR for the proposed Panama Papers inquiry commission.

Speaking at a press conference at his residence along with leaders of other opposition parties, PPP Senator Aitzaz Ahsan had stated if the government continued to resist a free and fair probe into the Panama Papers leaks, next time the PTI and PPP leadership could be on the same container to lead anti-government demonstrations.

He, however, had explained that a final decision to join hands with PTI chairman Imran Khan for the launch of an anti-government movement would be taken by the PPP leadership.

Sources in the PPP said there was a group within the party which was not in favour of joining hands with Mr Khan keeping in view the track record of the PTI. They were of the view that the PTI leaders in the past had not only criticised the PPP leadership, but they had also used objectionable language against it.

KP MEMBERS: Meanwhile, members of the PPP Coordination Committee of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa called on Mr Bhutto-Zardari at Zardari House on Wednesday and discussed the current political situation and the party’s organisational matters in the province.

According to an official handout, those who called on the chairman included Rahimdad Khan, Faisal Karim Kundi, Shazee Khan, Humayun Khan, Noor Alam Afridi and Senator Rubina Khalid.

Faryal Talpur, Jamil Soomro and Senator Farhatullah Babar were also present at the meeting.

The party chairman advised the coordination committee to step up contacts with the workers and the people in the province and also reach out to the people in distress particularly the internally displaced persons.

CONDEMNATION: President of the PPP Parliamentarians Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the targeted killing of Amjad Sabri in Karachi and called for investigation into this heinous crime, arrest of the killers and punishment to them in accordance with the law.

In a condolence message, he said the kidnapping a day earlier of the son of the Sindh high court chief justice and the killing of Amjad Sabri showed that the terrorists and their backers were still active.

He called upon the provincial government to look into the reasons for the spurt of targeted killings and whether it was part of some larger plan hatched by the militants and their backers.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2016