Nawaz Sharif to address public meeting in Quetta today

QUETTA: Ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif will address a public meeting being held to commemorate the 44th death anniversary of an eminent leader of the independence movement, Abdus Samad Khan Achakzai, here today.

Apart from Sharif, Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chairman Mehmood Khan Achakzai will also address the rally at Quetta’s Ayub Stadium.

All arrangements have been finalized with banners, PkMAP flags and billboards portraying the martyred leader put up at the venue and important locations across the provincial capital.

The provincial government has put in place stringent security measures to ensure the safety of the former premier and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) chief.

This will be Nawaz Sharif’s second interaction with masses in the wake of his indictment by an accountability court in corruption references filed against him and members of his family by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

On Nov 19, the embattled leader addressed a public gathering in Abbottabad, where he continued with his criticism of the judiciary, saying “A whole drama was staged in the name of Panama Papers and my entire family was dragged into courts…but we still accepted the accountability calls because “we are not guilty.”

Panama Papers leak had thrown Pakistan’s powerful Sharif family into an existential crisis, particularly after judicial investigators ‘discovered’ in a damning report that the ruling dynasty amassed wealth beyond their known sources of income. What ensued next was the barrage of clarion calls for accountability.

The clamours for action against Sharif family intensified after the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), set up by the Supreme Court to investigate corruption allegations that surfaced following the Panama Papers leak, after two months gave its finding to the court declaring that Sharif family accumulated wealth far above its earnings and they prepared falsified documents to mask the truth.