KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani on Friday held a meeting at Sindh Assembly to take stock of the political scenario emanating from the arrests by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
According to sources, the meeting was held at Durrani’ chamber which lasted for an hour. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was also present on the occasion.
The accountability watchdog on Wednesday arrested Durrani in Islamabad for possessing assets beyond known sources of income. He was produced in a Karachi court later on which handed him into NAB custody till March 1 for further investigation.
The arrest of the party leader didn’t go down well with the PPP. Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari bashed the bureau for arrest, saying that his party would not allow the “benaami wazeer-e-azam to establish a beywardi aamriat (dictatorship)”.
“Attack on [the] speaker of [a] federating unit is unacceptable. [An] undemocratic attempt to dislodge Sindh govt. Failed before will fail again. Independent institutions shouldn’t unwittingly be part of political engineering,” he said on Twitter.
The arrest prompted a press conference from party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari as well, who termed it a “challenge to democracy”.
“A speaker is an autonomous figure, you are challenging democracy when you arrest a speaker,” the former president, adding nobody should be arrested until the conclusion of a case.
Regarding the fake bank accounts cases against himself, he said: “PPP always accepted court’s decisions and wanted to strengthen courts. We will go before NAB, we will challenge NAB and face them. We are hopeful that the investigation will be fair.
