Daily Times

Deputy Chairman Senate Saleem Mandviwalla on Sunday said that he intends to take action against interior ministry for filing a First Information Report (F.I.R.) against Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar without taking Senate in confidence, rejecting Secretary Interior’s reply to Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani.

Talking to media, Saleem Mandviwalla affirmed that Interior ministry made a ‘mistake’ by giving go-ahead for the arrest of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto’s spokesperson Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar.

Claiming that interior ministry should accept its mistake for apprehending the Senator, Mandviwalla stated that no information on the subject was priorly given to Senate.

“Interior ministry had assured that they will not make the arrest before notifying. However, not even the Chairman Senate was briefed on the matter an now the things have gone past him”, stated Saleem Mandviwalla.

“Now I will take this matter into the upper house of the parliament, and then there we will devise further proceeding on the issue as per the unanimous decision”, he added.

On March 20, Mustafa Nawaz Khokar manhandled police officials on occasion of the appearance of party chairman Bilawal and co-chairman Asif Zardari at the NAB office in a corruption reference.

A day later, Capital city police booked Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokar, Raja Shakeel Abbasi and 70 other PPP stalwarts for creating menace and manhandling officials of Islamabad police.

According to the FIR, the PPP workers tried to breach the security of the NAB building by removing the barriers despite being told by the deputy commissioner about the imposition of section 144 in the federal capital territory of Islamabad.

The FIR also contained sections for injuring police personnel by the PPP workers and hurling derogatory remarks against the accountability watchdog officials while trying to enter the NAB premises before the arrival of their leaders.

Published in Daily Times, March 25^th 2019.