Yaqoob Izhar favourite among PTI names for interim Punjab CM?

LAHORE: Although confusion continues to mount in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) rank and file over the nomination for the post of Punjab caretaker chief minister, it has now pitched three more names for this vital administrative slot, sources divulged to the "Jang Group" Friday evening that in case his colleagues do not agree of any one name due to certain reasons, Imran Khan might veto in favour of his old friend and former Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Senior Vice President, Engineer Yaqoob Tahir Izhar.

Till the filing of report late Friday night, discussion was also reportedly going on within the PTI top quarters about the other two other names the party has now fielded for the post of Punjab's interim chief minister.

These two names are television analyst Dr. Hassan Askari and eminent columnist Ayaz Amir, who had also served as PML-N legislator in the Lower House of the Parliament, but later quit the party. 

Engineer Yaqoob is a nephew of renowned theologian, philosopher and Islamic scholar, Dr. Israr Ahmed. He is one of the Directors of the Izhar Group of Companies, an engineering and fully-integrated construction group founded in 1959 by his father (late) Engineer lzhar Ahmad Qureshi, who was the son Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmad, a civil servant who worked in the office of Deputy Commissioner in undivided India's Hissar District before migrating in 1947 to get settled in Montgomery (now Sahiwal).

Yaqoob Tahir Izhar did his Civil Engineering from Taxilla University. Yaqoob is also among the main Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital fund-raisers in Lahore.

According to newspaper archives, Chakwal Additional District and Sessions Judge, Asghar Khan, had in 2011 ordered the registration of a case of sexual assault against Ayaz Amir and six others (Raja Azhar, Farooq Qasai, Murtaza Bhutto, Naseem alias Komal and Jamshed) on a petition filed by a 15-year-old married girl, Tabasum Farooq.

In one of his columns on the subject, Ayaz Amir had alleged that Qazi Ameen had served as an Advocate General of Punjab in the previous regime of PML Q and he was fighting the baseless case of Tabussam to degrade him. Qazi Ameen had contended that he was just doing his professional duties.

As far as Professor Hassan Askari Rizvi is concerned, he was a visiting professor at Columbia University and German's famous Heidelberg University, before returning home and appearing on numerous television channels as a political commentator and defence analyst. Sources said a few PTI office-bearers were skeptical over the favourable views that Dr. Askari often renders on television screen for the Sharif family.