- PTI chief says Shehbaz Sharif should also not remain under any delusion that another NRO deal will materialise
GHOTKI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Sunday warned that his party would march on Islamabad if a law was passed to grant amnesty to “plunderers”.
Addressing a rally in Ubauro town of Ghotki district, Khan said, “The nation will not accept another NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance). We will go to Islamabad and protest till we get rid of corrupt leadership if an attempt is made to amend National Accountability Bureau (NAB) laws.”
Referring to former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf’s 2007 NRO, Khan said that Pakistan People’s Party Co-chairman Asif Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz president Nawaz Sharif had already been granted an NRO once but we won’t allow it to happen again. “(Punjab Chief Minister) Shehbaz Sharif should also not remain under any delusion that another NRO deal will materialise. You will not get away through an NRO,” he went on to say.
The PTI chief warned Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi that if the NAB law was amended to benefit Sharif or Zardari, his party would take to streets.
Pointing his guns at the PPP leadership, Khan alleged that the rulers of Sindh had continued to oppress the people of the province for decades. “The people of Sindh must realise that their rulers have been most unfair to them for decades now,” he said, claiming that he had made a lot of efforts to awaken the people of Sindh and that they were no more indifferent to the injustices done to them.
Continuing his diatribe against the PPP and PML-N, the PTI chief alleged that “Nawaz had laundered Rs300 billion and Zardari was not far behind”. He also questioned how these leaders could be sincere with the nation when their assets were stashed abroad. He requested the people of Sindh not to vote for any leader whose wealth was parked outside of Pakistan and boycott those rulers who were guilty of corruption.
Clarifying his own financial status, Khan said, “Every rupee that I own is in Pakistan, and that is why I am concerned about this country and its development unlike those who have transferred all of their money abroad.”
In comparison, he said, “A joint investigation team had revealed that Nawaz Sharif has Rs300 billion holed away in foreign bank accounts while Zardari is not far away from him when it comes to corruption.”
He cemented his argument by presenting the example of politicians from other parts of the world and said, “Western politicians can’t even think of being elected if they have money hidden away in foreign countries.”
Senior PTI leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jahangir Tareen and Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rasheed also addressed the rally.
The PTI chief’s remarks come in the wake of the government’s plan to put up for a vote a controversial constitutional amendment bill that proposes right to appeal against an order of the Supreme Court passed in suo moto notice during the current session of the National Assembly.
The Constitution (24th Amendment) Bill was tabled in the House in November last year. In January, the NA Standing Committee on Law and Justice passed it with a majority vote and referred it back to the House for a vote.
The bill was introduced at a time (on November 18, 2016) when the Supreme Court was hearing the Panamagate case under Article 184 (original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court) of the Constitution.
The 24th Amendment bill suggests adding two new clauses — 184 (4) and 184 (5) — to Article 184.
The clauses propose that anyone aggrieved by an order passed by the Supreme Court under Clause (3) of Article 184 (suo moto case) could file an appeal in the Supreme Court and such appeals would be heard by a bench larger than the bench that passes the order.
The government would require a two-thirds majority vote to get it passed by both the houses of parliament.
However, the major opposition party, the PPP, has already been supporting this piece of legislation. Given the situation, the government faces no difficulty in terms of managing the required strength to get the bill passed.