LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) will file a reference with the Punjab Assembly speaker seeking disqualification of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday (today) for concealing assets and laundering the money overseas.

At a news conference at Chairman’s Secretariat, Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed said on Thursday Mr Sharif had paid $17.5 million to get Park Lane flats de-attached in February 2000, which were attached by the London High Court in its March 16, 1999, judgement in Al-Taufiq Corporation vs Hudaibia Paper Mills. He said Mr Sharif was at that time serving as director of the mill.

“Shahbaz Sharif amassed $17.5 million through corruption and laundered money abroad,” alleged the opposition leader.

Mr Rasheed also stated that the chief minister had illegally relocated his family’s two sugar mills – Chaudhry Sugar Mill and Ittefaq Sugar Mill – to Rahim Yar Khan. He said the Lahore High Court had declared the mills relocation illegal in a case filed by party general secretary Jahangir Tareen’s JWD company.

Former PTI Punjab president Ejaz Chaudhry had filed a petition following the LHC judgment that the relocation of the mills had benefited the Sharif family in contravention of the policy that neither any sugar mill be established or relocated to south Punjab nor sugarcane be sown.

Despite the LHC decision, Mr Chaudhry said, the chief minister constituted a committee under his own chairmanship on April 8, 2011 and the committee too decided that the sugar mills not be relocated to south Punjab. He said Mr Sharif preferred his family’s interests supreme over national interests and was no more “Sadiq and Ameen”.

Mr Chaudhry said the PTI would not only file reference in the Punjab Assembly but also protest against Shahbaz Sharif’s concealment of assets, money-laundering and working against the interests of the nation.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2017