LAHORE: PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira has reacted to the summons served on the Sindh chief minister and other leaders from Sindh by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

“What message the authorities wish to convey by summoning the Sindh chief minister to the federal capital for investigation into a so-called fake accounts case?” said Mr Kaira here on Monday.

He said the fragile federal structure must not be shaken further, adding that it seemed the authorities wanted to destroy the provincial governance system by summoning the Sindh cabinet and bureaucracy every other day to Islamabad. Seeing a conspiracy behind the act, he feared that the Sindh government would then be blamed for not delivering and alleged that NAB was adopting anti-federation policies like the ‘Imran Niazi’ government.

The PPP leader asked the “institutions” not to make his party a “punching bag” as it had faced all kinds of allegations in the last 30 years.

He lamented that PPP co-chairperson Asif Zardari was once presented as a drug baron and at other times portrayed as the person who kidnaps the wealthy after fastening bombs to their legs.

Pir Ijaz Hashmi, president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, also criticised, what he said, the use of NAB for pressurising the opposition and called it “unconstitutional” and “undemocratic” attitude.

In a statement, he said the controversial anti-corruption watchdog created by the Musharraf regime “failed” to maintain its neutrality as its ‘partial’ steps displayed that the agency was being used for crushing political rivals.

He said by summoning Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and PPP leaders to Islamabad though the cases against them were registered in Karachi showed that the federal authorities were distrusting the Sindh institution.

He warned that the policy would prove detrimental to the federation of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2019