Bilawal accuses PM of ‘playing with lives of political opponents’

Warns case will be registered against government if something happens to Nawaz or Zardari

HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of playing with the lives of his political opponents. The criticism came in reaction to the sudden deterioration of the health of former prime minister and leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif.

“It seems that Imran Khan wants to use the health of his political opponents to put the leadership under pressure,” said Bilawal at a press conference in Mithi, Tharparkar district on Thursday, where he inaugurated the Thar Engineering, Science and Technology Institute, which is a campus of NED University, Karachi. “These are the shenanigans of a fascist government.”

He said that the news about Sharif’s health is ‘concerning’ and ‘upsetting’ and prayed for his swift recovery. Bilawal condemned what he described as the state’s torture tactics being employed against the incumbent government’s political opponents. “Khan should first become a human, then a politician and then finally the PM”.

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The PPP’s chairperson also held the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) responsible for Sharif’s health condition. “Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is at the death door today. He was in NAB’s custody for the last 13 days because NAB had arrested him from prison.”

He said that the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, also called the Nelson Mandela Rules, should be applied to Sharif and that the judiciary should also take notice. “If a former PM and a president [PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari] are being meted out such treatment, what will be the condition of an ordinary prisoner?” he asked. He said that the PPP opposed such politics and governance of vendetta.

Bilawal recalled that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s leaders and their supporters used to mock the health condition of Sharif’s deceased wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, until her death proved the rumours wrong. He asked the people to learn from past mistakes and pray for Sharif’s health even if they consider him a political opponent.

The PPP chairperson said that his father, Zardari’s health condition also did not allow his custody with the NAB. He added that Zardari’s doctors had recommended his hospitalisation since August when he was arrested but the NAB kept dawdling on their request until recently when he was shifted to PIMS on the court’s orders.

He described NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal’s recent statement that the opposition parties level political accusations on the bureau as a joke. “We have all been watching how the NAB chairman is being handled. On one day he gives an interview, on the second day a video emerges and since the third day, he has been playing in the hands of the government.”

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He advised Iqbal not to issue political statements. “I want to ask the non-political, independent and human rights defending NAB chairman how Sharif’s health deteriorated in your custody?”

He went on to warn him that if something happened to Zardari and Sharif, the FIR will be registered against the government, but he too would not be spared. He said that the bureau’s chairperson would also be held accountable for the deaths of the people including professors, doctors and political opponents who died in NAB custody due to torture or political victimisation.

Azadi March

Commenting on Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s upcoming Azadi March, Bilawal said that Khan should honour the promise he had made in his speech in the National Assembly for providing containers and food for the opposition’s sit-in protest in Islamabad. He said that Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s demands for the PM’s resignation holding fresh general elections are shared by the all parties’ conference and the Rehbar Committee. “If Khan has no fear, if he thinks he is so popular that the protest will not make a difference, then why is he creating so many obstacles against the march?”

Thar coal

Bilawal praised the Sindh government’s Thar coal project, being operated under the public private partnership and said that even PM Khan boasted about the project on international platforms. He claimed that 73% of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company’s employees belonged to Tharparkar while the Thar Foundation, the project’s welfare arm, has been implementing an array of welfare projects. He added that the model should be copied in other China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects for the betterment of local communities.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the provincial cabinet has fixed the release price of flour in view of its shortage and soaring prices. He added that the government will also subsidise wheat which it purchases from PASCO. The CM assured that the promise of providing royalty of the Thar coal project to Tharparkar will also be honoured after completing the required procedures. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2019.