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ISLAMABAD: Legislators belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) have topped the list of lawmakers who have yet to submit statements of their assets and liabilities to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
A total of 19 lawmakers, including three members of the National Assembly and eight each of the provincial assemblies of Punjab and Sindh, have been suspended for failing to submit their own statements of assets and of their spouses and dependants, more than five weeks after the deadline.
Read: ECP wants power to suspend legislators over assets
They include eight lawmakers of the PTI, six of the PPP, four of the PML-N and one of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
Senior leaders of the PTI — including its chairman Imran Khan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jehangir Tarin, Shafqat Mehmood and Dr Arif Alvi — have filed the statements and the failure of the party’s other legislators to do so appears to have nothing to do with their resignations.
The three suspended MNAs belonging to the PTI include its candidate for the office of speaker of the National Assembly, Shehryar Afridi (NA-14 Kohat), Muhammad Azhar Khan Jadoon (NA-17 Abbottabad) and Sajid Nawaz (NA-3 Peshawar).
When contacted, Mr Afridi said he could not file the statement because he had gone to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj. Mr Jadoon and Mr Nawaz could not be contacted for their comments despite repeated efforts.
The list of eight suspended members of the Punjab assembly is also dominated by the PTI. Five of them are from the PTI and the remaining three from PML-N.
The suspended PTI members are Malik Taimur Masood, Dr Salahuddin Khan, Mian Muhammad Aslam Iqbal, Waheed Asghar Dogar and Abdul Majeed Khan Niazi.
Also read: Over 200 lawmakers suspended for not declaring assets, liabilities
The three suspended members of the provincial assembly belonging to the PML-N are Rana Shoaib Adrees Khan, Jamil Hassan Khan and Sardar Atif Hussain Khan Mazari.
Owais Muzaffar, former provincial minister for local government and a close aide of PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, is among the eight members of the Sindh assembly who have been suspended for their failure to file the statements.
The other suspended members of the house from PPP are Aziz Ahmad Jatoi, Syed Fasih Ahmad Shah, Parveen Aziz Junejo, Khairunnisa Mughal and Shahnaz Begum.
The remaining two suspended members of the assembly are Humayun Muhammad Khan of the PML-N and Irum Azeem Farooque of the MQM.
Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2014
