Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chairman has said that such terms of reference (ToRs) have been framed that the whole process might take years to probe the Panama Papers allegations.

“Given the complex ToRs, the proposed commission will not be able to reach any conclusion,” the PAT chief said while addressing the party’s core committee via video link from Canada on Saturdy. He said the ToRs should have been specific targeting ruling elite and other Pakistanis who have offshore accounts or investments abroad, while other social crimes should be investigated by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

He asked the prime minister to step down, saying the allegations are directly related to the Sharif family and morally the prime minister should have stepped down the day these leaks became public.

“There was no need to form a commission, rather punishment needed to be awarded, but as our country lacks a credible accountability system, the prime minister instead of resigning has started threatening.”

The core committee meeting briefed the PAT chief on the contacts with other like-minded parties for which a committee is already working with Khurram Nawaz Gandapur as its head with Major (r) Mohammed Saeed, Kh Aamer Fareed, Basharat Jaspal, Fayyaz Warraich and Brig (r) M Mushtaq as its members.

The meeting also decided to hold an All Parties Conference on the Model Town incident in the second week of next month. The meeting praised the efforts of the Pakistan Army for conducting a successful operation to arrest the Chhtu gang.

The meeting also demanded a strict action against those who “ill-planned” the earlier operation in which several policemen were martyred. The meeting demanded the resignations of the Punjab law minister and the Punjab inspector general of police (IGP). The meeting condemned the increase in power load shedding just as the summers set in. “The load shedding has revealed the real face of the government before the people of the country,” the meeting observed.