ISLAMABAD: The war of words between the government and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf continued on Monday, even though the Supreme Court, while directing both sides to come up with their respective evidence in the Panamagate case, asked them to refrain from issuing statements against each other on the matter.

Three leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz — Privatisation Commission chairman Mohammad Zubair, parliamentary secretary for information Mohsin Shahnawaz and Daniyal Aziz — held a press conference at the Press Information Department claiming that the PTI had failed to provide any evidence against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that he was involved in the Panama scandal, set up three offshore companies and committed money laundering.

On the other hand, PTI chairman Imran Khan also spoke to the media after attending the Supreme Court proceedings and said his party would present evidence against the prime minister at the next hearing scheduled for Nov 15.

Mohammad Zubair claimed that PTI’s counsel Hamid Khan admitted that the party had no evidence against PM Sharif and requested the apex court to investigate the matter on its own.

“If Imran Khan has no evidence then why he has been maligning an elected prime minister since April 3, when the Panama Papers were published, and why the PTI is bent upon shattering the entire system,” he asked.

“Leave politics of accusation and start politics of evidence,” he said.

Daniyal Aziz accused a private TV channel of distorting the statements of children of PM Sharif — Hussain, Hassan and Maryam — about their offshore properties and companies. “Today we have submitted replies of all three children of the prime minister in which they have argued the same they said in their media statements in the past,” he claimed. If they claimed to have evidence that these were false statements then why the PTI and the TV channel had not presented it before the court on Monday, he asked.

Mr Aziz said everybody knew that PM Sharif’s name was not in the Panama Papers and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had itself clarified that it had wrongly mentioned his name in its report on the scandal.

He said the Supreme Court had also issued notices to Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen, asking them to come up with their replies at the next hearing to allegations about their involvement in setting up offshore companies — Niazi Services and Sugarland. “We will provide evidences against Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen in the court. Now they will run way and we will catch them.”

Mohsin Ranjha said the prime minister and his children had forgone their right to challenge the maintainability of the Panamagate case in the Supreme Court. “This showed their good intention so that the matter could be resolved once and forever on the basis of justice.”

IMRAN KHAN: The PTI chairman told journalists that Prime Minister Sharif, who had a week ago agreed to provide evidence of his innocence, could not do so during Monday’s proceedings.

He said the Sharif family had sought one week to provide such evidence. “I am happy with the court’s proceedings as it has given one week time to Nawaz Sharif for search,” he said, adding that he would not do anything that could affect the court’s proceedings.

“I am happy that Nawaz Sharif has agreed to provide the evidence which he has been ignoring for seven months,” he said.

Imran Khan said the Supreme Court had asked the Sharif family to answer four questions, adding that if they replied them there would be no need for constituting an inquiry commission.

He said Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Khawaja Asif, Siddiqul Farooq and prime minister’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz had given different statements about the Sharif family’s apartments in London. “PML-N claimed that the apartments were bought in 2006, but I had staged a demonstration in front of them in 1996,” he said.

The PTI chairman said he was ready for his own accountability as he too had received notices from the court. “Misuse of authority is itself corruption, but I never held any public office,” he added.

Published in Dawn November 8th, 2016