Kidnapping case: Punjab minister dogged by Sapna controversy resigns

Dost Muhammad Khosa had fallen out of favour with Punjab CM, PML-N following a number of serious allegations.

LAHORE:

Following pressure from his party and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, provincial minister of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Sardar Dost Muhammad Khosa resigned on Wednesday citing ‘personal reasons.’

The resignation of the provincial minister for commerce and trade followed a Lahore High Court order to register a kidnapping case against him for the abduction of his wife, Sapna Khan.

The resignation was immediately accepted by the chief minister.

Khosa, the 37-year old son of former senior adviser to the chief minister Zulfiqar Khosa, was facing allegations from Sapna’s family that he had kidnapped and murdered the former model and actress from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, who was also the mother of his child.

Khosa, however, has always denied the allegations, registering a counter FIR against the parents and family of Sapna for her abduction.  Last week, a Lahore High Court judge ordered police to register an FIR against Khosa.

According to sources, even before the Sapna case surfaced, Khosa’s relationship with the party and the chief minister had been deteriorating. Shahbaz was unhappy after Khosa’s name crept up in a couple of inquiries into malpractice. In 2010, the chief minister received various complaints of corruption and abuse of authority and reshuffled the departments of four cabinet members from PML-N, including Khosa. While other cabinet members joined their new assignments the very next day, Khosa refused to take up his new charge for weeks.

The relations between the two became so estranged that Khosa stopped attending assembly sessions and cabinet meetings. He was removed from the powerful ministry of local government, a portfolio he was given after he stepped down as chief minister.

Additionally, when the PIC medicine disaster came to light, Khosa held the chief minister responsible on the floor of the Punjab Assembly for the deaths. Moreover, the provincial chief minister was reportedly displeased with Khosa’s steadily growing notoriety.

Sources add that relations between Shahbaz and Khosa were stable mainly because of the latter’s father, whose strong ties with the chief minister and party president Nawaz Sharif had earlier kept Khosa in their good books.

WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT BY ANWER SUMRA IN LAHORE.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th, 2012.