Daily Times

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday reiterated his demand to remove ministers having links with banned outfits, saying it was in the country’s best interest.

Talking to the media, the PPP chairman claimed the government had appointed controversial people in the cabinet.

“If the National Assembly session is so expensive then it is expected that the leader of the house appears in court,” said Bilawal, adding that the prime minister received salary, yet acted as a ghost employee. “The prime minister should appear in every session and be answerable to the House.”

He clarified that the government was the one staging a protest in parliament, not the opposition. “If I deliver a speech in English then desks are banged, while if I deliver a speech in Urdu, they chant slogans.”

Bilawal on Monday hit out at the government, saying there were serious allegations against newly appointed Minister for Interior Ijaz Ahmad Shah over his alleged involvement in the murder of foreign journalist Daniel Pearl.

“What kind of a message are you [Imran Khan] trying to send to the international community with such a federal cabinet,” Bilawal remarked while speaking on the floor of the National Assembly on Monday.

Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped on January 23, 2002 from Karachi and later beheaded by his captors.

Without naming them, the PPP leader claimed that certain members of the federal cabinet were facilitators of terrorists and had links with banned outfits.

In the same breath, he urged the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to remove all ministers who had “ties with proscribed organisations”.

Bringing PM Imran into his line of fire, Bilawal had said, “You [PM] can’t hide your own incompetence by reshuffling your federal cabinet.”

Meanwhile, Bilawal said his party would introduce legislation in parliament, demanding an end to torture at the ‘hands of the state’.

The PPP chairman posted on Twitter that the police, agencies and the National Accountability Bureau had a history of such practices.

He said it was common knowledge that these practices “are in continuum and no civilised democratic state functions in this manner”. Earlier, Bilawal said that the PPP was not scared of dictators like Ayub Khan and Pervez Musharraf, and would remain steadfast against the puppet government. “We will continue to expose their anti-poor policies,” he said. “You have to be accountable… that’s what happens in a democracy.”