LONDON: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif has challenged the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal to produce evidence that he or any member of the Sharif family contacted him directly or indirectly to offer plea bargains or any kind of deal or else he should issue clarification and rebut the reports ascribed to him.
Addressing a press conference here accompanied by former finance minister Ishaq Dar, the former Punjab chief minister said that several days have passed since the NAB chairman made allegations against him, his brother Nawaz Sharif and son Hamza Shahbaz in an interview with a local paper. In the interview, the NAB chairman alleged that Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza offered to pay him money for leniency in his case and that Nawaz Sharif had made a similar offer.
Shahbaz said that he had not spoken to the NAB chairman, never met him and never contacted him.
“There has been no direct or indirect contact. The claims on behalf of the NAB chairman have been made in a published interview. The NAB chairman must issue a clarification on the lies published in the article. I call on the NAB chairman to provide evidence in support of his allegations. I will quit politics forever if he provides any proof to back up his allegations. We reserve all our legal and constitutional rights,” he said.
Shahbaz said that he and Ishaq Dar had met as party colleagues in London and updated them about the party’s strategy in Pakistan. He said credit for ending loadshedding goes to Nawaz Sharif’s government. He said that the PML-N government brought energy projects to Pakistan and dedicated four years to end loadshedding. He said it was laughable that Imran Khan took credit for ending loadshedding in Pakistan.
The PML-N president said that he had never met or seen a bigger liar than Imran Khan all his life. He said the PTI government was responsible for creating fake crisis in 2014 onwards and stopped the Chinese president from coming to Pakistan. He said the PTI government has no economic plan for the future of Pakistan.
Shahbaz said his party would remain neutral on the recent scandal relating to Justice (R) Javed Iqbal, but demanded the constitution of a parliamentary committee for probing the allegations. He said a parliamentary body should be formed to probe the issue as it was of national importance.