LAHORE: Former minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan on Monday demanded a “Panama-style joint investigation team (JIT)” to probe into the undeclared foreign assets of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) leaders.
Mashhood, while addressing a presser in London, claimed that Aleema Khan – the sister of Prime Minister Imran Khan – owns 17 properties in Dubai, London and in the United States.
“Her net worth is $27 million. The authorities should ask her regarding the source of income and money-trail [for the funds used to acquire foreign properties],” he said.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) stalwart went on to allege that the aforementioned properties were bought using the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital (SKCH) and NAMAL college funds.
“Aleema and Imran Khan, conjointly, own the properties,” he alleged.
The former minister noted that the “concerned authorities have not taken any action into her offshore properties despite the fact that Aleema, herself, has admitted to own properties in multiple countries”.
He further avouched that the “National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the courts are not taking any action against her despite having sufficient evidence”.
“What kind of justice is it,” Mashhood lamented.
The PML-N lawmaker claimed that Federal Minister Faisal Vawda also own properties in London which are acquired through money-laundering.
“He must be tried in a court of law on same grounds as Nawaz Sharif,” he stressed.
Earlier, another PML-N leader Abid Sher Ali also accused Faisal Vawda of possessing properties in London.
Rana went on to say that “Vawda owns eight properties in London and has declared only a fraction of it. Vawda does not have enough evidence of how he acquired those properties and what channels were used to send money abroad. The bureau is only witch-hunting PML-N leaders while helping PTI leader cover up their offences”.
He challenged the minister to “give proofs of how he sent money abroad to purchase properties in posh areas [of London] like Mayfair, Hyde Park, Edgware Road and Maida Vale”.
Mashood also bashed the anti-graft watchdog and asked that “why is it silent? Imagine, this minister [Vawda] lectures on money-laundering but doesn’t have money trail himself.”
While referring towards the Saaf Pani scam, he said that “Raja Qamar-ul-Islam was put in detention by the bureau ahead of 2018 elections because he was a winning candidate and thus a seat was snatched away from PML-N”.
Mashhood also alleged that former bureaucrats “Fawad Hasan Fawad and Ahad Cheema are still imprisoned because they refused to become approvers against Shahbaz Sharif”.
He asserted that “there was no corruption under PML-N but the NAB is trying to persecute PML-N leaders to help PTI government. Shahbaz Sharif has been released because the NAB failed to produce any case of wrongdoing against him. The NAB must stop damaging Pakistan,” said the former Punjab minister.
