ISLAMABAD: Central leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has termed the witch-hunt against the party and other opposition leaders as a vicious victimization wherein the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) ‘has become a tool placed in the hands of puppet rulers’, according to a press statement issued by the party. PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari chaired a meeting of party leaders from the four provinces and Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapters at Bilawal House to discuss the current political situation in the country and preparations to mark the martyrdom day of Benazir Bhutto. Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, Khursheed Shah, Qaim Ali Shah, Qamaruz Zaman Kaira, Makhdoom Ahmed Mahmood, Humayun Khan, Ali Maddad Jattak, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and Waqar Mehdi attended the meeting. The PPP chairman endorsed the views expressed by the party leaders that the PTI government has unleashed a victimization campaign targeting PPP and other opposition parties after a ‘dry-cleaning drive for inducting a puppet regime against the will of the collective wisdom of the nation’. The meeting noted that the PTI government was in fact drumming up cosmetic and hollow projects as its poor and directionless policies together with sky-rocketing inflation were leading the national economy towards a disastrous nosedive. The meeting expressed deep concern over the ruthless anti-encroachment drive by the PTI government wherein poor segments of the society have been specifically targeted without chalking out any compensation plan. “Instead of providing employment, the puppet regime is turning thousands into jobless,” the meeting observed. Bilawal said the PPP leadership has suffered at the hands of all the dictators of the past and their chosen henchmen but never compromised on its ideology and struggle meant for emancipation of the masses from perpetual exploitation at the hands of undemocratic forces. The meeting also discussed in detail the preparations of programmes to observe 11th martyrdom day of Benazir Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bux on December 27. Published in Daily Times, December 13th 2018.