UMERKOT: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke to party workers and members of his Ghousia Jamaat at several receptions given to him in Ramzan Kalroo, Saleh Bhanbhro, Dhoronaro, Ghulam Nabi Shah and other villages of Umerkot district on Tuesday.

Mr Qureshi arrived here on Monday evening for a six-day visit to the district to mobilise his party workers and followers in the run-up to PTI’s Oct 20 public meeting in the city. He told party workers that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its leaders were running away from accountability as they were being exposed in the investigations into their corruption to the tune of billions of rupees. He said that after [ousted prime minister] Nawaz Sharif and his family, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar was also facing trial over allegations of massive corruption. An investigation into the Hudaibiya Paper Mills affair would reveal startling facts, he added. He criticised another PML-N leader, Daniyal Aziz for speaking irresponsibly and usually misbehaving with other people.

Mr Qureshi cited a report prepared by the auditor general of Pakistan which revealed corruption involving Rs470 billion in the National Highway Authority alone. He said the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Shah of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), must take up the matter in the relevant forum.

The PTI leader said that his party’s legal team was working on an accountability bill which would be tabled in the elected houses with a view to net all looters and plunders of national wealth. He deplored that unwise friends of Nawaz Sharif would sometime attack the judiciary and sometime criticise other national institutions and while being in the United States, they were all praise for India.

Mr Qureshi agreed with the ISPR statement that there was no threat to democracy from the army, and said that instead, democracy was under threat from the corrupt, agent mafia and looters of national wealth. He claimed that the idea of “technocrat government” was also floated by the Sharif group.

Mr Qureshi observed that Pakistan and the South Asia region were faced with climate change impacts. He noted with concern that India was building dams over its rivers to stop flow of water into Pakistan which would ultimately have an adverse effect on Pakistan’s economy which was based on agriculture. Coupled with the climate change impacts, this might cause food insecurity in the country, he said.

In reply to a question, the PTI leader said he did watch Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani’s disturbing remarks in a video that went viral on social media. He said Mr Durrani being a lawmaker and speaker was not expected to utter such remarks.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2017