PML-N Senator Parvez Rashid on Monday said the party had no link whatsoever with the Mehran Bank scam and the court verdict would prove the innocence of his party leadership.
Talking to reporters outside the Parliament House, Rashid pointed finger at the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders for their involvement in the scam and claimed that his party had all the relevant record about the scam.
In an apparent reference to President Zardari and Habib, Rashid said the Mehran Bank scam was the creation of an uncle and a nephew. He said the nephew was using the uncle to blame the PML-N leaders.
“Younus Habib said on record that four billion rupees loans were written off by the Mehran Bank on the directives of the PPP leadership,” he asserted. “Between 1988 and 1990, Safdar Abbas Zaidi had withdrawn a heavy amount from the bank through fraud and as a result the PPP government was formed in 1993. After the formation of the PPP government, Safdar Abbas Zaidi was made Director of Board of Investment,” claimed Rashid, who himself was a part of the PPP in 1993.
He said PML-Q Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who was the PML-N’s secretary general in 1993, had proved in a press conference at the time that Mehran Bank money was used to dislodge Pir Sabir Shah’s government in the NWFP.
“If General Asad Durrani had distributed money to the leaders of PML-N, why did the PPP made him ambassador to Germany? Certainly, Asad Durrani, during his tenure as DG-ISI, must have given some favours to the PPP and in return got the ambassadorial job,” he claimed. The PML-N senator said there was no proof that a person of the name of Asif Jamshed, who was the then president of Mehran Bank Punjab, had given money to Shahbaz Sharif.
“When Mian Manzoor Wattoo became chief minister through a conspiracy, he extended the tenure of Asif Jamshed. On the other hand, when Shahbaz Sharif again became chief minister, he cancelled the extension of Asif Jamshed on March 25, 1997,” he said and asked Jamshed to come up with proof if he had sent money to Shahbaz.
Earlier, the Sharif brothers said the former bank chief Younas Habib was an important man of President Asif Ali Zardari and was levelling baseless allegations against the PML-N on the directives of the president.
A statement issued by Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif and his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said, “Younas Habib is Zardari’s man and levelling allegations at his (Zardari’s) behest.”
Sharifs hit back: Claim Habib is Zardari’s ‘man’
