Our Correspondent
Islamabad
The National Accountability Bureau on Wednesday arrested senior PPP leader Syed Khursheed Ahmad Shah in a case regarding his alleged assets beyond means from near Bani Gala.
A brief handwritten statement issued by NAB Islamabad said, “NAB Sukkur has arrested Syed Khursheed Shah in the assets beyond means case”. He will be presented before the relevant accountability court in Sukkur for remand today, the press release said.
The PPP stalwart was arrested in a joint operation by NAB’s Rawalpindi and Sukkur chapters. He remained in NAB Rawalpindi’s custody on Wednesday night.
According to NAB sources, the PPP leader was arrested in a case pertaining to acquiring assets beyond means of income. Shah was taken away by nearly 20 personnel of NAB and police during a raid at his Islamabad residence, the domestic staff at his house told media.
They claimed that the NAB and police personnel had neither allowed any discussion nor let the servants take out their mobile phones before they took Shah away with them.
Sources in NAB said the arrest came after allegations were proven in the initial investigation against the PPP leader and that further inquiry would be carried out in the case.
The PPP leader is accused of allotting to himself an amnesty plot illegally from a cooperative society in Sukkur. The investigation has been ongoing since August 7 and it was alleged that the PPP leader built bungalows, petrol pumps, and hotels in the name of others (benamidaar). NAB sources said Khursheed Shah would
Meanwhile, Pakistan People’s Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, in a press statement, said Wednesday that the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s behaviour towards its opponents and critics was “reminiscent of Salem witch trials”.
Bilawal condemned the PTI’s attempt to launch a witch-hunt against media too after having entangled the Opposition leaders through the anti-graft watchdog. The way the PTI dealt with opponents and critics was “based on frivolity and falsehoods, the PTI’s narrative is right out of Goebbels’ propaganda playbook”, he said.
Speaking about the media, the PPP chairman said the ruling party was “going to go after its critics in the media through these so-called media tribunals” now that the PTI had “found an easy way to imprison its political opponents by unleashing NAB”.
Terming the tribunals as “nothing but another way of silencing dissent”, Bilawal said the PTI’s social media team followed the exact same path of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “bhakts” who, he said, discredited and harassed critics online.
“Now, they want to go after media organisations through these special tribunals because the media is exposing select PM’s ineptitude and incompetence,” he added. “Enough is enough. The media fraternity, too, must raise its voice for their own rights. The Opposition firmly stands behind them,” Bilawal stated.
Reacting to the development, PPP senior leader Sherry Rehman said Shah, an MNA, was arrested while the National Assembly session was underway without intimating the NA speaker to “further your condemnable objectives”.
“On one hand we say that the law of jungle is prevailing in the world through which Kashmir is being subjected to state oppression; it appears that something similar is happening here.
