LAHORE: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) wants the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of the ‘brutal’ National Accountability Bureau (NAB) powers for averting their misuse that’s leading to humiliation of people, forcing them to commit suicide like Asad Munir.

The party has suggested its leaders appearing in various talk shows to build a campaign for urging the apex court to take up the issue, a senior party leader told Dawn on Tuesday.

Requesting not to be named for not being authorized to talk on the issue, he said the party had always been opposed to unbridled powers of the anti-corruption watchdog but could not amend its laws for lack of required support in the parliament back in 2008-2013.

He said the PPP made abortive attempts to convince the PML-N, which ruled the country in 2013-18, to make necessary changes in the NAB laws for averting misuse of its powers.

He lamented that NAB officials misbehaved with the family of Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani but the bureau chief never condemned it, which meant the ‘misbehaviour’ enjoyed support of retired Justice Javed Iqbal.

He said as the ruling PTI was disinterested in amending the dictator-authored law, the only forum left for relief was the Supreme Court, which should take suo moto notice of the barbaric and unethical practices of NAB officials.

Referring to retired Brigadier Asad Munir’s suicide, the PPP leader said the unfortunate incident is a food for thought calling for action against NAB before things get out of control.

He alleged that the NAB had been and is being used for political engineering and is fast becoming a political institution.

Meanwhile, the PPP has directed its provincial, divisional and district level office-bearers, leaders of allied wings as well as ticket-holders to reach Islamabad on Wednesday (today) as a show of solidarity with party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari when the duo would appear before a NAB team in fake accounts and other cases.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2019