Deputy speaker adjourns NA session till Tuesday after PPP’s protest

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Deputy Speaker Qasim Khani Suri adjourned the session till Tuesday after Pakistan Peoples Party legislators surrounded his dais in protest for not allowing Bilawal Bhutto Zardari speak in the National Assembly.

The PPP lawmakers launched a strong protest after the deputy speaker named Railways Minister Shiekh Rashid Ahmed to speak instead of Bilawal. Despite several warnings from the deputy speaker, the PPP members continued slogans against the government and him.

Railways Minister Shiekh Rashid warned that if he is not allowed to speak, he won’t let anyone else speak in the house. Sensing the rising friction, the deputy speaker called for the adjournment till Tuesday.

Bilawal in his reaction on the development said that it’s the second time that the MNAs from Jhelum and Rawalpindi were preferred over an MNA from Larkana. “My voice has been censored again. Two federal ministers were preferred over me,” he said.

The protest came in the background of the arrest of former president Asif Ali Zardari by the National Accountability Bureau.

The NAB arrested Zardari in the fake bank accounts case from his residential place in the capital city. The anti-graft body has been taken the former president to the NAB office in Melody.

The case

The FIA is investigating 32 people in relation to money laundering from fictitious accounts, including Zardari and Talpur. Zardari’s close aide Hussain Lawai was arrested in July last year in connection with the probe.

The former president’s other close aide and Omni Group chairman Anwar Majeed a close aide and Omni Group chairman and his son, Abdul Ghani, were arrested by FIA in August 2018.

Over 20 ‘benami’ accounts at some private banks were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made, according to sources.

The amount, according to FIA sources, is said to be black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes.