ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Tuesday alleged that some 200 files containing the corruption investigation record of top Pakistan Peoples Party leadership have gone missing from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) headquarters.
Siddiqul Farooq, a PML-N leader, told a news conference that many files containing investigation records against the late Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari relating to the Swiss accounts have been misappropriated and smuggled out of the country. He demanded a probe into the matter through a judicial commission.
He alleged that President Zardari intends to keep NAB hostage through a hand-picked chairman to erase evidence of his corruption.
“How a person, who used to sell tickets at Bambino cinema in Karachi, reached the Surrey Palace and became richer than Queen Elizabeth before his ascendancy to the presidency? It is a million-dollar question that only the PPP top leader has to answer,” the PML-N leader remarked, adding that an international network (Google) listed Zardari as the 8th richest person in the world ahead of Queen Elizabeth at number 13.
While criticising Law Minister Babar Awan, he remarked that Awan, who readily indulged in levelling allegations against the PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, should rather apprise the public about Zardari’s assets.
“Nawaz Sharif’s family paid taxes worth Rs7 billion during the last six years. It is Mr Zardari who should explain to the people about his tax payments”, Farooq said.
He castigated Babar Awan for what he claimed having a fake degree and accused him of distributing sweets when PPP’s founding chairman was hanged.
The PML-N leader also stated that a clique that plotted the assassination of the Lahore High Court’s chief justice had similar designs against some other distinguished political leaders of the country. The PML-N has already informed the prime minister of the conspiracy through a letter, he added.
To a question about Nawaz Sharif’s and his family’s exile during Musharraf’s regime, the PML-N leader said that Benazir Bhutto and her mother Begum Nusrat Bhutto on record, had also left for abroad in 1979 after a deal with former military ruler Ziaul Haq.
“Begum Bhutto also filed a mercy petition to Zia after consulting her husband who was later executed. When Benazir Bhutto returned home on October 18 2009, she had already benefited from the Musharraf-sponsored NRO under which all allegations against her stood withdrawn,” he remarked.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2010.
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