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Thursday March 28, 2024

Spies get same punishment: Khursheed

By Asim Yasin
April 12, 2017

Says parliament not taken into confidence over issue of Kulbhushan

ISLAMABAD: Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah Tuesday said that Indian Raw agent Kulbhushan Yadav got death sentence as per Army Act being a serving military official of India.

“The spies get same punishment under the Army Act which was awarded to Indian RAW agent Kulbhushan Yadav and he deserved what he got ,” the opposition leader said while talking to media persons here at his chamber at the Parliament House after the cancellation of the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

Khursheed Shah said the government should have told the world that Pakistan has given the sentence of hanging to Indian RAW agent according to its law and constitution. However, he complained that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not take the Parliament into confidence on the issue of Kulbhushan. “The prime minister did not speak about the arrest of Indian agent and intervention of India in Balochistan in the United Nations,” he said.

Khursheed Shah said India will now start propaganda campaign against this sentence but now the government should speed up efforts to tell the world that Indian agent got sentence legally and constitutionally.

Coming hard on the government on the disappearance of three aides of former president Asif Ali Zardari, the opposition leader said the PPP will stage protest on the issue in the upcoming session of the National Assembly, scheduled to be held from Wednesday (today). “Our protest is based on the principal as recently the Parliament has approved an amendment under which security agencies were bound to produce the accused in the courts of law within 24 hours but in this case laws were violated and not produced before the court so far despite passing of one week,” he said.

He said the PPP objections were not on the arrest but on forced abduction and not producing in the courts of law as well as not informing under which charges they were picked. “ Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has failed to protect and implementation of the Constitution,” he added.

On the cancellation of the meeting of the PAC, the opposition leader said the meeting was cancelled as the government has not appointed the new Auditor General of Pakistan. “The key constitutional post of Auditor General should not remain vacant,” he said.

Khursheed said just before the start of the meeting, when inquired that whether the president has appointed any one as acting Auditor General, but it was told the government has not yet given the acting charge to anyone. “If the meeting was held in the absence of the Auditor General of Pakistan then the proceedings of the meeting could have been legally challenged,” he said.

Muhammad Anis adds: Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Senator Sirajul Haq has asked the government not to succumb to any external pressure and go ahead with hanging Kulbhushan Yadav.  

"RAW agent Kulbhushan is a terrorist and had sneaked into Pakistan for terrorism and Islamabad must not yield to any outside pressure on his death sentence," Sirajul Haq said while talking to media persons after a meeting of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council.

He said Kulbhushan had not sneaked into this country to relish mangoes or to have milk at his aunt’s home and he was a terrorist and had confessed his crime. "Therefore, there is no option except to execute him," he maintained.

The JI chief said that Pakistan was facing numerous threats both from within the country and from abroad. He said Pakistan is the only state after the state of Madina that was established on an ideology and it can’t gain strength without the enforcement of the Islamic system. He said betraying the Pakistan ideology would be tantamount to betraying Pakistan. 

He said that massive financial terrorism had been going on in the country for decades and the PanamaLeaks, WikiLeaks, DawnLeaks, Dubai properties and Surrey Palace were the irrefutable proof of that. He said the JI had approached the Supreme Court against corruption and for safeguarding the country’s ideology.