Daily Times

LONDON: Prominent Hindu community leader from Balochistan Santosh Kumar Bugti has said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had worked hard to empower the religious minority communities of Pakistan.

Santosh Kumar Bugti, who has served as a minority Member of the Provincial Balochistan Assembly, Santosh Kumar was speaking to Pakistani media after holding talks with the former prime minister at his son Hasan Nawaz Sharif’s office here near Hyde Park.

Santosh Kumar Bugti, who is visiting London to meet Nawaz Sharif and former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, said he discussed the latest situation of the country with the former premier and conveyed the best wishes of the minority Hindu community to Nawaz Sharif.

He said that under Nawaz Sharif’s government, not only Pakistan had seen a lot of economic progress but there was a significant improvement in the lives of minority communities who were empowered in terms of human rights, employment and equal opportunities.

Santosh Kumar said the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in 2014 revoked his membership as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) minority Member of Provincial Assembly Santosh Kumar after a reference against him was filed by the then PML-N Balochistan chief Sardar Sanaullah Zehri but Nawaz Sharif came to his help when he became aware of the situation. Santosh Kumar later won case at the Supreme Court of Pakistan and he was reinstated.

The former MPA said he congratulated Nawaz Sharif on the apology given to him by Kaveh Moussavi, the CEO of assets recovery firm Broadsheet, over the false allegations of corruption levelled against Mr Sharif for over two decades.

He said: “Mr Kaveh Moussavi has offered an unequivocal apology to Nawaz Sharif. After 22 years of witch-hunting in the name of accountability, Mr Kaveh Moussavi has declared Nawaz Sharif as Sadiq and Ameen by declaring that his assets recovery firm had not found a scintilla of corruption evidence against him, not a Rupee. This is a landmark vindication of Nawaz Sharif and this shows how he was targeted on completely false grounds. I congratulated Nawaz Sharif and told him that his millions of supporters always had trust in him.”