Senior leader of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Jehangir Khan Tareen said Monday night that the prime minister must resign as he has lost the moral authority to hold his office after the Panama Leaks.
He was talking to Pakistan Today Editor Arif Nizami in his Channel 24 programme DNA on Monday night.
“The Panama Papers have tainted Nawaz Sharif. He must clear himself instead of levelling allegations on others,” Tareen, a close confidante of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, said.
Tareen further added that he had acquired his wealth through hard work and fair means. He said he has never stolen his assets as he regularly files his tax returns but the Sharif brothers have a ‘Jehangir Tareen phobia’ as both of them level serious allegations against him.
He said that PTI would hold its show of power at Lahore’s Charing Cross next Sunday and that Imran Khan would announce the future strategy of the party in that public gathering.
“We’ll raise the issue of Panama Papers in the upcoming session of the parliament”, he said and warned that his party would come out onto the streets if their voices are not heeded. Tareen rejected the terms of reference (TORs) of the judicial commission to probe Panama Leaks and termed the TORs an eye-wash.
Answering a question, he said that PML-N has no threat from the army but that it is threatened from within.
“PTI neither enjoys the backing of the military establishment nor will it seek their assistance in future,” Tareen said categorically.
The prime minister must give a time-frame for the Panama Paper’s probe and there must be a foreign forensic expert to investigate the matter efficiently, he said.
“I have met with three international forensic firms in this regard during my recent visit to London,” he revealed.
Talking about the apparent rifts within the PTI in the wake of now-postponed intra-party elections, he said Imran Khan has barred all the senior leaders of the party including him and Shah Mehmood Qureshi from interfere at the local level in the party elections.
