KARACHI: Enraged Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) workers organized protest demonstrations across the country’s southern province of Sindh after their top party leader Asif Ali Zardari was arrested in Islamabad by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a money laundering case on Monday.
“Meeting of the party’s central executive council has been summoned to deliberate the future course of action,” Farhatullah Babar, a senior PPP leader, told Arab News.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, the party’s chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said his father was prepared to face the court.
“We have always taken the legal course and will fight this case,” he said while ruling out the possibility of a largescale political movement to dislodge the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration. “Fair trial is the right of every citizen under Article 10-A of the constitution.”
The PPP chairman said he wanted the country’s parliament to complete its term.
“We believe in democracy,” he said, though he also questioned NAB’s inaction while dealing with cases against Imran Khan’s sister, Aleema Khan, and PTI leader, Jahangir Khan Tareen, whom he described as de facto prime minister.
“No joint investigation team ever sits to interrogate their cases,” he complained.
Bilawal said no matter how much pressure was he subjected to, he would not “compromise on eighteenth amendment, the parliamentary Islamic democratic system, and the rule of law.”
Meanwhile, Sindh’s provincial minister, Syed Sardar Shah, who led a furious protest in front of the Karachi Press Club, told Arab News that the PPP had already announced a black day tomorrow and would protest across the province on Tuesday.
“The arrest of Asif Ali Zardari is a clear case of political victimization by the inept PTI government,” he claimed. “All this has been done to divert attention from the failed policies of the current administration.”
Speaking at the national assembly, however, interior minister Brig (r) Ejaz Shah denied that the PTI government had any role in Zardari’s arrest. “This is done by NAB. Our government has nothing to do with it,” he said.
Earlier in the day, a 15-member NAB team arrested the former president from his residence in Islamabad just hours after a court rejected his bail plea.
Since the former president is member of Pakistan’s parliament, NAB wrote a letter to the speaker national assembly to inform him about the arrest.
Both Zardari and Faryal Talpur, his sister, are facing a multimillion-dollar money laundering case. They were already banned from traveling abroad following the findings of a joint investigation team (JIT) that linked the brother and sister to several fake bank accounts and companies used to launder money.
NAB, however, did not arrest Talpur since her warrants were not issued. However, a police contingent, including female officers, entered the former president’s house after the court decision and all roads leading to his residence were blocked.
Widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari spent 11 years in jail on corruption and murder charges before becoming president in 2008. He was never convicted and denies any wrongdoing. He also maintains that the latest money laundering cases are politically motivated.
Zardari and Talpur were both present at the Islamabad High Court as a two-judge bench heard their bail extension pleas but left before the verdict was announced. They now have the option of appealing the judgment before the Supreme Court.
The case against Zardari and his sister pertains to suspicious transactions worth Rs4.4 billion allegedly carried out through a fictitious bank account. According to the prosecution, an account titled M/s A One International was fake and received a sum of Rs4.4 billion, of which Rs30m was paid to the Zardari Group at two different times.