SUKKUR: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has said that Supreme Court may announce its reserved verdict on the Panama Papers case before Wednesday and reiterated his ‘advice’ that the prime minister should tender resignation.

He advised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf not to hurry in expressing jubilation before the verdict and said Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was disturbed at the sight of so many young and ambitious politicians around the prime minister.

Mr Shah was speaking to journalists at the launching ceremony of a book on the history of Sukkur by Momin Bullo at the Institute of Business Administration on Sunday.

He said that young politicians were issuing incendiary statements which had Chaudhry perplexed. He had learnt that Chaudhry was suffering from pain in backbone or abdomen and he prayed for his speedy recovery, he said.

He said that he had advised the prime minister earlier to tender resignation since he would have to go in any case after the apex court verdict. It was the demand of whole nation that Mr Sharif should step down, he said.

Mr Shah said that he was unaware of the contents of volume-10 of the joint investigation team’s report and he figured it must contain important documents about money trail and bank accounts.

He believed the Supreme Court would declare its reserved verdict before Wednesday since the court did not give even an hour to the JIT beyond its prescribed period of 60 days.

About Sindh Assembly’s bill on the abolition of National Accountability Ordinance, he said the governor had no other option but to sign it.

The National Accountability Bur­eau about which Supreme Court’s remarks were heard by the entire world was active in Sindh only, it did not exist in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and elsewhere, he said.

He said that when the NAB arrested politicians of Punjab everybody cried foul and the NAB stopped in its tracks. In the days to come, the NAB would be abolished in all provinces, he said.

He said in answer to a question that the electoral reforms would be incomplete if the government and parliament were dissolved. Nobody should do politics on the strike by drivers of Pakistan Railway, he said and appealed to striking drivers not to halt passenger trains at railway stations and take the passengers up to their destinations.

He also appealed to the government to hold talks with the protesters and give a patient hearing to them to resolve their grievances.

About flood situation in the province, Mr Shah said that during super flood of 2010, explosive material had been fitted to Ali Wahan protective dyke and all preparations had been made to breach it when he came to know about it in the night. He opposed the move and convened a high-level meeting in which he persuaded everyone that the flood posed no danger to Sukkur Barrage, he said.

Sukkur Commissioner Mohammad Abbas Baloch, Sukkur Deputy Commissioner Raheem Bux Maitlo, Sukkur IBA Director Nisar Ahmed Siddiqi, Deputy Mayor Tariq Chouhan, author of the book Momin Bullo and others attended the book launch ceremony.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2017