This is a hijacked trial: Pervaiz Rasheed:
No need for interior minister to resign: Kh Saad Rafique
ISLAMABAD , Oct 2 (TNS) Embarrassed by denial of entry in the Accountability Court by the Rangers on Monday at the time of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s appearance, Muslim League Ministers and leaders have expressed their anger and said state within state cannot be allowed.
However Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique played down the episode saying that there is no need for Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal to resign after he was refused permission by the Rangers to enter the Accountability Court premises.
Talking to media persons outside the court premises, Saad Rafiq said he was also stopped to enter the premises and remarked that some people are trying to enrage us, but we will not indulge in any dispute and solve the matter peacefully. It is shameful that the interior minister was not allowed to enter the accountability court, he maintained.
He said we have to move ahead by settling issues and find out who were the two officers who stopped the Ministers. Similarly media was also not allowed inside the premises.
Khawaja Saad Rafique said that the accountability court judge and Supreme Court’s monitoring judge should take notice of this situation of disallowing media and lawyers from attending the hearing.
“Today we have seen a very unfortunate situation. We can’t see justice being served in the higher courts nor here,” he said.
Rafique said that he thinks that the situation is because of faulty local arrangements rather than orders from any high-ups.
When asked to comment on Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s threat of resignation, Rafique said it is understandable that Iqbal is upset, but “resigning is not the answer, it is the easiest thing to do”.
Former Information Minister, Senator Pervaiz Rasheed called the hearing of three corruption references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif ‘a hijacked trial’.
Responding to a question outside the accountability court, Rasheed said: “it is not an open trial, in fact, it is a hijacked trial”.
He added that, “Today we are paying the price for our efforts for democracy in the country. And we will continue to pay this price.”
He said that the court lockdown has clearly shown that in the last 70-year history of Pakistan, the “power rests with someone while the authority is enjoyed by the other”.
Without taking the name of former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, who is also facing a number of court cases, he said a “criminal has absconded and an innocent is in the court”.
When asked why then interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan facilitated the exit of former military ruler out of the country, he said: “Nisar couldn’t help us, how could he help him in his release.”
According to reports, several PML-N leaders including Raja Zafarul Haq, Ahsan Iqbal, Saad Rafiq, Daniyal Aziz, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Maiza Hameed, Mayor Islamabad and several MNAs were denied entry. Later Daniyal Aziz and Maiza were allowed to enter.
All of this happened when former prime minister Nawaz Sharif appeared before the accountability court for the second time today in connection with three references filed by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the Sharif family.
