Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, on Wednesday said the Sharif family could be asked about use of public money only and nobody has the right to look into private accounts of the Sharif family.

“If public money is involved, we are answerable … but it is not the case regarding our private businesses. We do not owe a single penny of public money,” she told reporters outside Federal Judicial Academy after her maiden appearance before a six-member panel constituted by the Supreme Court to look into Sharif family’s offshore business dealings in the wake of revelations by the Panama Papers.

Maryam said she answered all questions of the JIT ‘with honesty’. “I answered whatever questions they [the JIT] had … and I tried to answer with honesty,” she said, adding, “I asked them what the accusation against us [Sharif family] is. And they had no answer.” This is the first JIT of the world which is still trying to find allegations, she said.

Maryam said her name was not even mentioned in the April 20 verdict of the Supreme Court. “It is not the first ‘leaks’ in which my name is being used. Earlier, my name was used in Dawn Leaks to put pressure on my father Nawaz Sharif,” she said. “We are facing accountability for the fifth time. Our three generations offered themselves for accountability,” she said, and added, “Those who considered me as weakness of my father should know that I will be his strength. I am daughter of the person who taught me how to be upright.”

The PM’s daughter asked why were those who had no businesses and no source of income not being questioned, making a veiled reference to PTI chief Imran Khan, who was also accused by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of owning wealth beyond his means.

In an apparent reference to Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf, Maryam said Sharif family could also have find excuses and avoided JIT by making excuses on medical grounds like due to ‘pain in the back’.

“Those who have no regard for daughters and family values will never understand these things,” she said, in what appeared to be another attack aimed at Imran Khan. “If you are targeting me because I am Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, I will fight back because I am his daughter.” “We could have taken immunity and hidden, we could have absconded from the courts and gone to Nathia Gali, but we presented ourselves for accountability.”

“Those who have cases of misuse of public funds open against them have petitioned for stay orders. We [however] can justify our properties and have been doing so,” she claimed.

Maryam said if conspiracies will be hatched against Nawaz Sharif, he will return with more force. Those who are hatching conspiracies should keep in mind that Nawaz Sharif has support of the people, she added.

In a message to those hatching conspiracies, Maryam said, “Stop Nawaz Sharif otherwise he will end terrorism. Stop Nawaz Sharif or he will end load shedding and complete CPEC. Stop Nawaz Sharif or he will bring economic prosperity to the country.”

She said if conspiracies continued, Nawaz Sharif would become prime minister of Pakistan for the fourth, fifth and then the sixth time.

The prime minister’s daughter also warned her father’s detractors that they should fear the day PM Sharif brings out the skeletons from their closets. “The secrets he carries and the conspiracies against him — don’t push him to the point where he must reveal those,” she said.

The PM’s daughter is the eighth member of the Sharif family to be summoned by the JIT. She was accompanied by husband Captain (r) Safdar, brothers Hassan and Hussain, Minister of Information Marriyum Aurangzeb, PM’s Special Assistant Asif Kirmani and female capital police officers to the JIT secretariat. A number of PML-N workers, especially from the party’s women wing, had also turned up near the FJA to show support for Maryam.

Published in Daily Times, July 6^th , 2017.