PTI has declared 11 accounts of party leaders illegal: Babar

PTI founding member says party is disassociating itself from accounts of senior members including NA speaker's

ISLAMABAD:

Founding member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and petitioner in the party's foreign funding case Akbar S Babar claimed on Thursday that the party has declared 11 of its own accounts illegal in the case.

During a press conference in Islamabad, Babar stated that the foreign funding case has been ongoing for eight years while the scrutiny committee also took four years.

“The State Bank of Pakistan’s records show that PTI has disassociated itself from 11 accounts containing Rs23 million, claiming they are illegal,” the petitioner added.

According to the estranged PTI leader, the accounts belonged to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, Governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Shah Farman, Governor Sindh Imran Ismail and Mian Mahmood Rashid and Ahmed Rashid.

The petitioner said that "declaring the accounts illegal means the ruling party mistrusts its own people".
“In light of this, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should take notice and the 11 people whose accounts have been declared illegal should resign immediately,” he added.

The foreign funding case is a mega-scandal, and the truth is coming out after eight years, Babar stated, adding that the PTI is disassociating itself from the accounts of senior members of its party.

The next hearing is to be held on March 31.

Read ECP tells plaintiff he’ll get PTI foreign funding papers

On March 18, the Election Commission rejected the PTI's plea to disassociate petitioner Akbar S Babar from the funding case against the ruling party.

PML-N leaders Ahsan Iqbal and Tahira Aurangzeb reached the commission's office during the hearing, wherein the petitioner’s lawyer, Advocate Ahmad Hassan Shah, said the ruling party had not disclosed many of its foreign bank accounts. He added that the scrutiny committee did not seek the details of the London bank account, thus failing to justify its work.

Babar also spoke to the media, saying that the case was coming to an end as evidence of “complete illegal funding” had been presented to the ECP.

Saying that he was fighting for a bigger cause, he accused the ruling party of being funded by India.

Claiming that Prime Minister Imran Khan “destroyed” Pakistan, he said that they would “rebuild” PTI with the slogan of “Better Pakistan”.