Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah Thursday lashed out at the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team for ‘misbehaving’ with the family members of Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani following his arrest, and asked the anti-graft watchdog chairman to ‘fix his own house first’. While addressing the NAB chairman at a press conference here, Shah said his subordinates were ruining his name as well as that of the institution. “NAB chairman has remained a respectable judge of the Supreme Court and knows about the law. He should take action against those who misbehaved, especially, with female members of the speaker’s family,” he said. The Sindh chief minister alleged that NAB officials ‘scaled the walls of Durrani’s house and broke the gate when there was no male member of the family present at home. “Only Durrani’s wife, three daughters and daughter-in-law were there inside,” he said. “One of the subordinate also blew cigarette smoke at one of Durrani’s daughters. Will you tolerate such behaviour? How can we tolerate it?” he asked, and maintained that NAB chairman was responsible if his subordinate behaved in such a way. “To humiliate someone, especially a family, is an act below humanity,” he said, adding that NAB employees have done so and ruined the name of the NAB as an institution. Shah questioned why the NAB felt the need to ‘raid’ Durrani’s house if they already had evidence against him and had already arrested the speaker. He claimed that they made the speaker’s daughter sign something. “Who knows what they took [from the house]?” he said, and added that the family has not yet been given a seizure memo. Shah said a Sindh Assembly session has been called on Friday at 2pm to protest Durrani’s arrest and the mistreatment of female members of his family. He also noted that the acting speaker of Sindh Assembly has issued the production orders for Durrani, which he was entitled to as an MPA. He called on the NAB chairman to fulfill the constitutional requirement and permit Durrani to participate in the Sindh Assembly session. “We are not shying from facing accountability. The PPP will use all legal avenues available and also has a right to protest the wrongdoings,” he said.
Published in Daily Times, February 22nd 2019.
