KARACHI: Perturbed at a recent decision of an accountability court against his party’s lawmaker Ali Nawaz Shah, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah on Saturday asked the government to not vitiate the country’s political environment by hurling “false corruption charges” at the Pakistan Peoples Party.

“All the allegations levelled against our Sindh Assembly member Ali Nawaz Shah are false and fabricated and we stand by him,” Mr Shah told a press conference at the Sindh media cell of the PPP.

He said that the PPP would face all the cases with its characteristic resolve and commitment.

Accompanied by Senator Saeed Ghani and others, he said politics was like worship for his party and PPP leaders could never be involved in corrupt practices, which were being linked to them through trial by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) courts and the media.

“The media depicted our meeting with Ali Nawaz Shah in prison in a manner as if it was the sin of the highest order. Can we not meet a leader of our party whose politics is so clean that even his enemies swear on it?”

“A good human being has been tainted with corruption charges without considering the matter on just grounds,” he said, adding that the jailed PPP leader did not get the case against him quashed through the National Reconciliation Ordinance and had said that he would face trial.

He said a country where courts did not grant justice faced hardships and “I complain to the media that it did not give a fair consideration to the man who who has been in politics since Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s time. He can never betray politics”.

He claimed that the Water and Power Development Authority gave Rs500,000 to Ali Nawaz Shah as the cost to acquire his 13 acres for its Left Bank Out-fall Drain (LBOD) project in 1995. However, Mr Shah moved the court and received Rs2.136 million on the order of the court. “Where is corruption in this entire story?”

He said just five out of 56 accused were handed down punishment in a case involving a mere Rs1.541m.

“People are increasingly seeing that whatever happening around them is wrong and such verdicts are tainted with politics,” said the opposition leader.

He said the case against Ali Nawaz Shah was registered during former military dictator Pervez Musharraf’s regime.

He said that the PPP had full confidence in the superior judiciary, although it had no trust in its political rivals.

“We appeal to the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court to take cognisance of this and ask NAB how its court has passed such a verdict,” he said.

Referring to the unanimous passage of the Protection of Pakistan Act, Mr Shah said parliament had passed that law to launch action against terrorists and that law should not be used against any political leader.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play