ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday reached out to other opposition parties in its quest to make its call for protest against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a national cause rather than a PTI versus PML-N affair.

Led by Shah Mehmood Qureshi a special Panama Leaks-specific committee set up by party chairman Imran Khan held separate meetings with Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Emir Sirajul Haq and PPP leaders Syed Khrusheed Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan.

The PTI committee also contacted leadership of the PML-Q and Qaumi Watan Party chairman Aftab Ahmad Sherpao.

The PTI committee will hold meetings with PML-Q leaders in Lahore on April 14 and with Mr Sherpao in Islamabad on April 15.

Imran Khan has particularly asked Jahangir Tareen Khan to get in touch with PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

Senior PTI leader Dr Arif Alvi, who is a member of the committee, told Dawn that his party did not want its campaign for getting a forensic audit of Sharifs-owned offshore companies to be perceived as a dispute between Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif.

He said though Imran Khan had been raising the issue of money laundering by offshore companies owned by the Sharif family for quite some time, the PTI leadership wanted a collected stand by all those political parties which were genuinely interested in putting a full stop to corruption in the country.

Since the revelation of Sharifs-owned offshore companies in the Panama Papers both the PPP and PTI have been calling for a forensic audit of these companies through a judicial commission headed the chief justice of Supreme Court. But, questions remain whether the two opposition parties will be able to cooperate with each other in pressurising the government for such an inquiry.

JI EMIR: Talking to Dawn, Sirajul Haq said that his party had already launched a corruption-free Pakistan movement. “We want specific legislation against those found involved in economic terrorism.”

About the meeting with PTI leaders, the JI emir said he fully endorsed the PTI’s demand for a commission headed by the chief justice. As far as the question of JI’s participation in the possible PTI’s protest in Raiwind, he said, it did not come under discussion at the meeting.

PML-Q: After examining the agenda of the PTI’s protest, the PML-Q leadership would decide whether or not it should join it, said an office-bearer of the party.

Meanwhile, PPP chairman Bilawal Zardari Bhutto landed in Islamabad on Tuesday for a three-day visit.

According to PPP spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar, it is a scheduled visit of the young party leader and that it has nothing to do with the fallout of Panama Leaks. Senator Babar said Bilawal Bhutto was in the capital to oversee organisational affairs of the party.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2016