Karachi: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday warned the government that his party would review the National Action Plan (NAP), claiming it was grossly being misused by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government for their political gains.
Bilawal was talking to the media after visiting Dr Asim Hussain, a former PPP minister, currently on trial on corruption and terrorism charges, who was lately admitted to a local hospital over deteriorating health issues.
“The NAP is being politicised for their [Sharif government’s] own personal purposes instead of its real spirit,” he said.
He said that the plan was drawn after the consensus of all the major political parties and that was aimed at targeting the terrorism and extremism in the country.
“It [the NAP] should be reviewed anew,” he added.
The PPP chairman observed that the NAP was targeting the northern parts of the country, as well as this southern port city where political personalities were being targeted under the garb of NAP.
Referring to the arrest of Karachi mayor Waseem Akhtar, and another PPP local leader Qadir Patel, he said that the fact that the elected mayor and Patel were facing trials under terrorism clauses was beyond comprehension.
He asked the Prime Minister to justify his position as to why the political parties might support him in his fight against terrorism. “Is [action against terrorism] it really going on or not? We should be convinced.”
He deplored the fact that Dr Hussain was detained and interrogated for 90 days, a special power assigned to law enforcement agencies under anti-terrorism clauses to combat terrorists, making him the only politician and former minister to be put on trial in the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC).
The son of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former president Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal said he was a victim of terrorism and thus determined to root out extremism from the country.
Later on Saturday, he was scheduled to preside over the party’s central executive committee meeting at his residence, where all senior PPP members had gathered to deliberate on the party’s policy with regard to the NAP and volatile political situation in Islamabad.
Khursheed Shah, opposition leader in the National Assembly, Aitezaz Ahsan, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Sindh chief minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and other senior leaders were expected to take part in the meeting.
During his media talk, Bilawal also crticised Imran Khan for his current political expediencies and plan to lock down Islamabad on November 2. Without naming Khan, a former cricketer and fast bowler, Bilawal said that he tried to convince the ‘sportsman’ that it was not a sport, and that it was instead a matter of national security.
