PPP announces ‘go Nawaz go’ movement in Sindh

Khuhro says party to stage sit-ins across province to put pressure on PM to resign

In the wake of the Supreme Court judgement in the Panama Papers case, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sindh chapter has decided to launch a “go Nawaz go” movement, saying protest sit-ins will be staged at all district headquarters.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, the PPP president in Sindh, said the apex court’s decision to constitute a joint interrogation team (JIT) was tantamount to indicting the prime minister as the team would look into the assets of Sharif and his family members for irregularities.

As per routine, he said, JITs were constituted for conducting further investigations against the accused.  

Khuhro was of the view that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had lost the moral authority to rule the country because he was no more an “Ameen” and “Sadiq” person after giving varying accounts of the case, first in his speech in the National Assembly and later in his televised address to the nation.

“We demand that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should immediately resign in order to face the investigations.”

He said the nation had waited for an entire year for the judgement in the Panama case with the expectation that the judiciary would become the saviour of the masses, but in the end, people got nothing from the court’s decision.

The PPP leader said that during the hearing of the case, the apex court did not summon the prime minister even once to ask him questions. The PM was being given an easy way out as subordinate officials would conduct the probe the charges against him, he added.

He said all hopes of the people had been dashed as the apex judiciary stopped short of disqualifying the prime minister. He said the apex judiciary had always heard cases against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz sympathetically.

Khuhro stated that public pressure would be mounted to compel the prime minister to step down. 

He announced that as long as Sharif remained in power, the concerned public would continue to protest everywhere in the province, from the tehsil level to the provincial level. A sit-in would be staged in Karachi on April 26, he added.

He said the country would be at a loss in case Sharif remained PM because he was responsible for electricity, water and gas shortages in Sindh. 

In its much-awaited verdict on Thursday, the Supreme Court raised 13 questions regarding the money trail, ownership of Mayfair flats in London and offshore companies, and ordered the constitution of a JIT that would probe the allegations of financial irregularities and money laundering against Prime Minister Sharif and his family for establishing properties abroad.

A five-member larger bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, announced the judgment on petitions seeking the disqualification of the prime minister for allegedly lying on the floor of parliament. 

The court directed Sharif and his sons to appear before the JIT as and when required.