PM to address public meeting in Mandi Bahauddin today: Farrukh

MANDI BAHAUDDIN: Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to address a public meeting here on Friday (today) as people of the area wanted to thank him for giving remarkable development packages, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said.

Talking to the media, he said it would be a historic public gathering for which all arrangements had been finalized and the people of the area looking forward to giving a warm welcome to their beloved leader Imran Khan. Farrukh said the government had initiated several development projects, including the establishment of a public sector university, in the area.

He said a mass-mobilizing vibe would trigger from Mandi Bahauddin. The minister said the opposition, in an attempt to emulate the prime minister for pulling the same size of the crown in public gatherings, had launched a movement and vowed a politics of ‘now and never’ in the convention held at Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore. Their movement did not only receive a lukewarm response from the public but their leaders also got humiliated and resorted to beseeching and entreating for the survival of their politics, he added.

He said the PML-N was in the habit of using power against their opponents while being in the government, otherwise, they fell on the feet of their adversaries for political benefits. Citing the PML-N president’s meetings with their political opponents, he said now Shehbaz was not only at the feet of PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari but also visited the Chaudhry House after several years for inquiring after the health of Chaudhry Shujaat.

Terming the opposition ‘a group of blackmailers’, he said it had been hatching conspiracies against the democratically elected government. Their blackmailing against the government would not work as the prime minister was committed to recovering the looted national wealth after sending the corrupt politicians into jail.

He said Shehbaz would be indicted on February 18 for laundering billions of rupees through accounts of Ramzan Sugar Mills’ employees. Ironically, an amount of Rs 4 billion was poured into the account of Maqsood, who was a peon in the mill and drawing a meagre monthly salary.

The Sharif family used to operate the account of a dead person, while Masroor Anwar deposited billions of rupees into the accounts of Shehbaz Sharif, he noted. He said now Shehbaz Sharif was nervous and making efforts to save himself from accountability.

Even, he was reaching out to his old adversaries for protecting the looted money, he added. Turning his guns towards Maryam Safdar, he said she in her media talk claimed that the National Accountability Bureau had no evidence of corruption against her. “Her statement in which she denied ownership of any property was enough to implicate her in the case. Her statement was negated by her brother in an interview with the private channel in 2016 and admitted that the Sharif family-owned four flats in London and Maryam Safdar was their beneficial owner,” he added. He said later the documents of a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, confirmed that Maryam was the beneficial owner.

The minister lashed out at Maryam Safdar for constantly seeking adjournments in her case and asked her to produce solid evidence in the court for proving her innocence.