PPP leadership being victimised again, alleges Ghani

Compares cases against current party leadership to those faced by Benazir, ZAB

KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information and Archives and Labour Saeed Ghani has said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership is being victimised in the name of accountability.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Ghani termed the actions taken by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the PPP leadership unconstitutional. The minister recalled that the same thing was done against Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who faced capital punishment in a fake case. It was on record that the superior judiciary apologised for the same but quite late, he added. He said that it was the only criminal case in the judicial history of Pakistan which was directly heard in the high court instead of the sessions court.

Ghani said that even after the passage of five to six years, the Supreme Court had not expressed its opinion on the reference filed by then president Asif Ali Zardari about the case of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The minister said that what followed was the filing of a series of fake cases against former President Asif Ali Zardari. He said that Zardari was arrested in fake cases for murder and possession of heroin.

But even after spending 11 years in prison, he could not be convicted in any of the cases as they were completely baseless, he said. Ghani said that same was done with Shaheed Benazir Bhutto as she was indicted in fake cases and subjected to a media trial. Unfortunately, she had to attend the hearings of the fake cases filed against her in different cities on the same day with her children, the minister said.

He said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the establishment, during that period, violated the Constitution of Pakistan just to harass the PPP leadership. Ghani said that time had again proved that Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was also vindicated but no one apologised over it.

The minister said that the same was being done against the present-day leadership of PPP, which included former president Asif Ali Zardari, PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, MNA Faryal Talpur, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and other leaders of the party.

Fake accounts case

The minister said that the case of the fake accounts, which started from around Rs40 billion had now been reached to Rs300 billion. He said that the amount was neither transferred to the account of Asif Ali Zardari nor Faryal Talpur, but in the account of Zardari Group of Companies, the complete record of which was available, he added.

Ghani said that the PPP leadership was even being denied the facilities that were given to [Indian spy] Kulbhushan Jadhav, Abhinandan and Eshsanullah Ehsan. He lamented that even on Eid days when the inmates facing murder charges were allowed to meet their relatives, the PPP leadership was deprived. He added that Zardari was not even allowed to offer Eid prayers. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 16^th, 2019.