Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Thursday that acquittal of thrice-elected prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Quaid Nawaz Sharif in the plot allotment reference by an accountability court in Lahore clearly showed a political vendetta of the last PTI regime.
Addressing a press conference, she said the plots allotment case related to the tenure when Nawaz Sharif was the chief minister of Punjab.
She said the owner of a leading media house was arrested in a fake case just to pressurize the media to toe the line of the then rulers. Similarly, journalists were arrested and targeted only to curb dissent views, and on that account the then prime minister was given the title of a ‘predator’ at international level.
She said today’s verdict of the accountability court was an eye-opener for those who had blindly followed the fake narrative of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
She said in the so-called illegal plots allotment reference it was alleged that Nawaz Sharif as Punjab chief minister had specifically favoured Mir Shakeelur Rehman to manage favourable media coverage.
She said under the ‘NAB- Niazi nexus’, the National Accountability Bureau was given the task to to target political opponents of the PTI chief.
The minister said today, the accountability court had affirmed that Nawaz Sharif was targeted to have political avenge. The court also noted that no evidence of corruption was found against the PML-N Quaid, which led to his honourable acquittal.
It was also pointed out that no legal requirements were fulfilled for declaring Nawaz Sharif as an absconder, she said, adding the process to target the PML-N chief and his family had commenced with changing ‘Panama to Iqama’.
The minister opined that the objective of Asset Recovery Unit was to target and victimize the PTI chief’s political opponents, and gag the media. Now it was the divine justice that Shahzad Akbar had no courage to face the public on that count.
With pressure on NAB, they managed to get false cases instituted against Nawaz Sharif, she added.
Marriyum cited the court verdict: “The record reflects that the accused Muhammad Nawaz Sharif had become the victim of political victimization, and perhaps the NAB authorities were constrained to prepare the reference at the behest of the then ruling junta to damage and destroy the political career and goodwill of the accused (Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif) who had been three times elected prime minister of Pakistan .”
She said the accountability court had categorically stated that Nawaz Sharif was politically victimised. The then regime used all possible means and resources to target and victimize the opponents, she added.
The minister said from 2017 to 2022, Nawaz Sharif not only presented himself along with his daughter, his brother and his brother’s family, but also provided documents of his late father related to the past 40 years business record.
“This is the moment of concern for those who are still under influence of a person who had brought destruction to the country, rendered youth jobless and ruined the national economy, besides clearing the way for return of terrorists and load shedding in the country.”
She said the country would not have been facing the scourge of load-shedding had the previous PTI government focused on performance instead of resorting to political victimization.
Not a single megawatt of electricity was added to the national grid during the last government while Nawaz Sharif as prime minister had made an addition of 14,000 MW and incumbent PM Shehbaz Sharif over 5,000 MW in Punjab as its chief minister.
