Zardari calls for immediate arrest of Sharifs

• PPP co-chairman says his party rejects VIP accountability of Sharif family

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Friday called for immediate arrest of members of the Sharif family, saying there were serious charges of corruption against them.

In a statement issued here, the former president said that ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family were going through VIP accountability where they would appear before the NAB court with a caravan of 40 vehicles and over 3000 police officials deployed.

“PPP does not accept such kind of accountability. Accountability should be conducted the way our accountability was conducted during Nawaz Sharif’s government in the 1990s,” he went on to say.

“If a reference is initiated against the PPP leadership, the bail of the person will take two and a half years, whereas the Sharif family is granted bail in just one day” Zardari said as he questioned, “What sort of accountability is this?”

In Nawaz Sharif’s case, cases had been initiated on the orders of the Supreme Court, but Nawaz Sharif and all his family members were roaming freely, Zardari said, adding that Nawaz Sharif should remember the accountability of the 1990s.

The former president said that Nawaz Sharif was still minting money on each ship of LNG and getting a commission of four million on each ship.

Zardari said that the pipeline project from Iran had been cancelled by Sharif family otherwise Pakistani people would have got cheap gas through that project. He added that Nawaz Sharif has sacrificed Pakistani interest for his own financial gain.

About being allies with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Zardari said: “The godfather sends us secret messages for reconciliation from London, but we have rejected them.”

It may be mentioned here that the new chairperson appointed for the National Accountability Bureau — a federal organisation — is the one whose name was suggested by PPP.

Earlier in the day, Zardari addressed a meeting of PPP Manifesto Committee, where he said his party’s first priority was to make the country a welfare state.