Imran won’t be given NRO: Ahsan Iqbal

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Friday maintained that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder chairman would not be able to secure any national reconciliation order (NRO) and he would have to prove his innocence.

“What they want to say here is that they want NRO for their founder but I want to make it clear that your leader would not be given NRO, and he will have to prove his innocence in courts,” the minister said while responding to an earlier speech of Opposition Leader Omar Ayub Khan in the National Assembly.

He said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) leadership fought their cases in the Parliament and courts and proved their innocence but never begged US Congress and other international fora.

He advised the PTI leaders to prove their innocence if they had not committed any crime. “You should tell the courts as to why you made embezzlement of 190 million pounds to benefit someone and sold out gifts,” he said.

Responding to points raised by the opposition leader regarding non-provision of facilities to the former prime minister in Adiala Jail, Ahsan Iqbal said that Imran was getting much better facilities than the PMLN leaders were given in prison during the PTI government.

He said that incidentally the PTI founder is being kept in the same cell in which he [Ahsan Iqbal] was prisoned. “The PTI founder is getting five-star facilities as compared to facilities which the PMLN leaders were having,” he said.

He recalled that the PMLN leaders were not even allowed to see lawyers and friends but Imran’s statements are being released from the prison in a way that he is sitting in his house in Banigala.

Ahsan Iqbal, while pointing out that Imran had been crying for facilities in prison, questioned whether anybody from the PMLN including Rana Sanaullah, Shehbaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Khawaja Asif, Saad Rafique, Hanif Abbasi and he made hue and cry when they were in prisons.

“We faced whole the situation bravely and did not make hue and cry because we were on the right side and later proved our innocence,” he said advising the PTI parliamentarians, who were making noise, to hear his speech with courage.

He said the PTI leaders start crying whenever they are asked to show receipts which they were demanding from their opponents when in the government. “Now they have fallen in the same pit which they had dug for others,” he said.

Hanif Abbasi said that it was grandfather of the opposition leader who laid foundation of problems of Balochistan causing deprivation amongst people while tribal leaders were forced to take to mountains. He said that it was the PTI founder who used to see snap shots and photos of Rana Sanaullah and of himself [Abbasi] wearing prisoners’ dress and handcuffs.