After a long session just shy of four hours, when Shahbaz Sharif emerged out of the Judicial Academy he said less about what he was quizzed and more about the political environment the house of Sharifs was going through. Selective accountability was his complaint and the target was Musharraf and camp that supported him.
“Dictators and elected rulers have different attitude towards courts and the rule of law. My back aches too but I didn’t go to London. I didn’t hide in AFIC,” blasted Shahbaz Sharif with his words soaked in sarcasm and anger, just like his elder brother two days ago.
He would give elaborate details about the day he and his elder brother were seated handcuffed on a plane as if they could run away from a flying machine. There were many things uncommon between both brothers but the defiance was the common theme.
Although on a question, he got very emotional and played the sad violin depicting the anguish his family was going through. He called it the 5th phase of accountability starting on January, 2nd, 1972 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and ending on Panama JIT. But by and large, he didn’t lose his temper. He didn’t knock the podium assorted by TV microphones down, something he is known for.
What happened inside the JIT room is a different story. He didn’t create an emotional scene he created outside, insist the sources. Inside he gave detailed answers to pretty much every question he was asked.
Just like his elder brother who appeared on Tuesday, he was seated in the same room unlike other folks who tell horrible stories, Husain Nawaz included, say the sources. The room did not have cameras staring in his face but a microphone recording his statement for transcription purposes, say insiders.
Sources say, Shahbaz Sharif mainly put the ball in the court of his late father, who would inform them about the business on the need to know basis. Only he would know what to offer to what siblings. Nobody could ask him questions on the inheritance. He is gone and the rest can be asked from Hasan and Hussain Nawaz or the Qatari, was the long and the short of the story, narrated by sources.
We haven’t done anything wrong, haven’t siphoned public money and are ready for any probe or the re-probe, ordered if and when, was the gist of the story of Shahbaz inside the JIT room, the sources say.
Unlike his brother who read a written text to avoid contradictions that may get used against him, he faced the cameras and the reporters without a prepared text. He even showed the generosity of taking a couple of questions from the reporters who were baking under the June sun in Ramazan.
Earlier in the day he left Punjab House for the Judicial Academy in a white carto defend the charges of black money. Shahbaz arrived on time in a car chauffeured by Chaudhry Nisar, flanked by Ishaq Dar and his son Hamza Shahbaz. In recent history Aitzaz Ahsan is remembered for driving around the vehicle of then deposed Chief Justice seeking justice. The Sharifs journey for justice here is chauffeured by Chaudhry Nisar. As much as they despise each other, Aitzaz Ahsan and Chaudhry Nisar seem to be assigned the same task by the providence.
Sharifs feel the current phase of accountability is an attempt to signal the power elite of Punjab to jump the political bandwagon and weaken them to the extent that either they lose the next popular vote or return to the parliament much weaker so that the driving from the backseat model remains in vogue.