NAB case insult to PM Imran: Fawad

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Hussain Chaudhry on Tuesday said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was insulting Prime Minister Imran Khan by pursuing the helicopter case against him.

Talking to host Hamid Mir in Geo News show 'Capital Talk', the minister emphasised that the case against the prime minister should be quashed, as the world was laughing at the anti-graft body for pursuing the case against the prime minister.

He said the prime minister was not formally charged in the case and pursuing the case against him was an insult to the system of Pakistan and the prime minister himself. He wondered how a case could be initiated against the prime minister for just boarding a helicopter provided by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for inaugurating projects in the province.

The minister insisted that cases against the Leader of Opposition Shahbaz Sharif were not an insult to him. “We have no grudge against anyone,” he made it clear. Fawad said people facing charges of killing 16 people had been chief minister and added it were the political representatives, who faced disqualification or otherwise.

About the resignation of Minister for Science and Technology Muhammad Azam Swati, the minister clarified that he had tendered his resignation on the Supreme Court orders, which had not been accepted.

He emphasised that it was unfair to compare the case against Swati with Nawaz Sharif and Model Town cases and added that those who faced the allegations of involvement in Model Town tragedy would come to parliament clad in suit and wearing a tie and insisted that they should have been in jail.

Regarding Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan, the minister noted that ‘Aleema Baji’ had cotton export business for the last 20 years and alleged that the PML-N’s Marriyum Aurangzeb had a strategy to ‘make the water so muddier’ that people would get confused.

At one point, he said the allegations against Nawaz Sharif had not been levelled by the PTI government and that the Panama Papers matter appeared in a German newspaper. He further said that charges against Asif Ali Zardari were not levelled by the incumbent government but by the former PML-N government.

“Had there been no struggle by the PTI, it would not have been easy to see them in jail, as the state institutions became active owing to the PTI’s struggle,” the minister claimed. About the military courts, Fawad insisted that in principle, there should be no military courts but Pakistan had been passing through peculiar circumstances for the last manyyears, adding that the government would try to adopt a strategy taking along the PPP and PML-N in this connection.

At this juncture, Marriyum contended that in such a meeting to thrash out a collective strategy, Murad Saeed, Fawad Chaudhry and Faisal Vawda should be kept away, as they would create such a situation wherein there could be no dialogue. She continued, “Whenever, these three come to the parliament, the session can’t continue”.

About the information minister, Marriyum said she had asked him to focus on reading, as he had the habit of studying less and added that they had asked about what were the sources with which, ‘Aleema Baji’ purchased the property abroad, as her spouse, probably was a government servant, who had bought the property.

The former minister for information charged that Fawad Chaudhry had the record of staying in each political party for six months. She alleged in the Rs10 billion case, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s lawyer would not appear before the court and that the FIA was also under the prime minister. She alleged that Imran Khan had given an NRO to Aleema and those talking about the NRO while referring to the PML-N should be ashamed of themselves.