ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has asked as to who can guarantee the return of opposition leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif, who himself was the guarantor of his elder brother Nawaz Sharif’s return from the United Kingdom, if he is allowed to leave Pakistan on medical grounds.

Addressing a news conference along with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar, Mr Chaudhry said the PTI government fully respected the judiciary but it would avail all legal options against the court verdict allowing Mr Shehbaz to go abroad.

The hasty manner in which the opposition leader was granted bail was the manifestation of ‘obsolete system’ in the country, Mr Chaudhry said, adding that in a democratic set-up the government did not have unlimited powers and it had to take steps within the ambit of law and Constitution.

Says nation has to decide if anti-corruption drive is only Imran’s fight

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government since its inception had been striving to change the obsolete, rotten and corrupt system. Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said, had no personal enmity against the Sharif family. His fight was against the corrupt system and he wanted the return of plundered national wealth, he added.

The minister said from 1985 to 1999 and 2008 to 2018 two families had ruled the country, and the Sharif brothers were one of them, who had built properties abroad by plundering national wealth during their rule. It was not the PTI government but a German newspaper that had published the news of corrupt rulers, also known as the Panama Papers Leak. The common point in the Panamagate, he said, was that the rulers of poor counties had misused the national resources and purchased properties in rich countries.

He said Mr Sharif owned four apartments in London, each worth 45 million pounds. A child born in the Sharif family owned a house in the British capital even before his birth, he remarked.

The minister said it was time to decide whether it was the fight of Imran Khan only or that of the entire nation. Both the judiciary and prosecution had to play their role in rooting out corruption from society, he said.

As a political party, he said, the PTI had played its role as the people accepted its narrative and voted for Mr Khan. He appreciated National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman Javed Iqbal and his team for depositing Rs400 billion, recovered from the corrupt people, in the national exchequer.

He said the superior judiciary had given historic verdicts in the corruption cases, yet there were issues that needed to be addressed, as the system had not been overhauled so far.

The minister said if Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmeen Rashid could get medical treatment in Pakistan, then why the Sharifs who ruled the country for decades could not be treated in the country. He said Dr Rashid needed more urgent medical attention than Mr Shehbaz, but she was in the forefront in the fight against coronavirus. He also questioned if it was not the responsibility of Nawaz’s sons to come to Pakistan and face charges of corruption and money laundering.

Thousands of prisoners in jails also had the right to the relief given to Mr Shehbaz. There was an impression that the powerful could break the web of justice and go abroad for medical treatment while the weak remained trapped in it, which was an injustice to them. Such decisions would make the common man believe the law was not same for all segments of society, he added.

Previously when Mr Shehbaz had been granted bail on the pretext of back pain, he went to the UK and later was seen running on the roads of London, the minister recalled.

Mr Chaudhry said there was no personal vendetta of the PTI or its government behind the cases initiated by the previous regimes against the Sharifs. It was rather the fight of the masses against corruption that the PTI government was waging. Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz had already been convicted and the others would also face the same fate as all the cases would be taken to their logical conclusion, he said.

Responding to a question, the minister said the federal government’s stance was very clear that it did not want to let Shehbaz Sharif go abroad till all the cases against him were taken to their logical conclusion.

Asked about popularity of the ruling PTI, Mr Chaudhry admitted that the opposition parties had won recent by-elections, but popularity of any party could only be judged in the general elections. The PTI was the only party that could field candidates in all parts of the country, he said, adding that Mr Khan was the only national leader as all the opposition leaders were confined to regions. The PTI was only party that contested the general elections from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2021