LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and ex-governor Ghulam Mustafa Khar has said disqualification of former premier Nawaz Sharif constitutes only 25 per cent of accountability, demanding cleansing of the whole system.

At a news conference here on Monday, Mr Khar said the East Pakistan was separated largely because of the establishment and added that Nawaz Sharif’s role was becoming more and more like that of Bangladesh’s leader Mujeeb-ur-Rehman.

He warned that a leader could ignite fire but after a certain point he could not extinguish it.

He said Mr Sharif had repeatedly stated that he would go home if the Supreme Court gave verdict against him but later he did not keep his word. Instead, he said, Mr Sharif was creating a fire-like situation that could become too dangerous for the country.

Wants army to ensure free, fair polls

Answering a question, he said, both the Nawaz and Zardari were actually hand in glove like always and the PPP leader’s tirade against the ex-premier was “just a for public consumption”.

He said the ousted prime minister was never a leader but was created by different forces for their vested interests, adding Mr Sharif had always been a protégé of the Pakistan Army.

Answering another question, he said he wished that the army should support Imran Khan by ensuring holding of a free and fair election in 2018.

In 1970, he said, elections were rigged for 20 seats but in 2013 Mr Sharif led rigging at a large scale across the country.

“There is no independent institution in Pakistan that can hold free, fair and transparent general elections in the country,” he said.

YOUTH MEETING: PTI central Punjab president Abdul Aleem Khan said Nawaz Sharif had gone into a blind alley and his political fiefdom was collapsing.

“Now, Mr Sharif wants that others should also collapse along with him,” he told a youth meeting at PTI’s Chairman’s Secretariat on Monday.

Mr Khan said the Sharif family should not be allowed to escape from the country at this point of time, when the accountability process had begun. Zafar Hijazi’s record tempering case was enough to send disqualified prime minister Nawaz Sharif behind the bars, he said.

He said the whole nation now knew about the “corruption” of the Sharif family but surprisingly Mr Sharif was continuously asking “Mujhe kiyun nikala”.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2017