ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry on Wednesday said that the government was cutting down the security detail being provided to the members of the joint investigation team (JIT) which had probed allegations of financial misappropriation and money laundering against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif and his family.
“Rangers’ vehicles accompany even the children of the JIT members when they go to buy vegetables,” Chaudhry said.
“The JIT members will be provided only with necessary security,” the minister added.
“The SC has had a lot to say with regards to the JIT members: they are being provided with a lot, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s observations,” Chaudhry said, taking a snipe at the apex court.
The members of the JIT had faced at least one open threat while they were conducting their investigations into the Sharif family’s business dealings.
Senator Nehal Hashmi had delivered an incendiary speech in May, an apparent outburst against the judiciary, that cost him his membership of the ruling PML-N.
The suo moto notice of Hashmi’s speech was taken by the chief justice, which had also led the former PML-N leader to resign from the Senate. Later, however, Hashmi had retracted his resignation.
During a hearing of the case against Hashmi in the SC, the court had compared the government to the Sicilian mafia.
“It seems that the government’s self-proclaimed spokespersons let no opportunity for maligning the courts slip by,” Justice Ejaz Afzal had remarked.
