Federal Minister for Railways Azam Swati has accused senior JUI-F leader Akram Durrani of looting the country mercilessly, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Saturday.

Azam Swati said Durrani received over Rs15 billion in kickbacks. He further alleged that the JUI-F leader made assets in the name of his benami account-holders and that in his statement submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) he showed his assets of worth Rs5.5 million only.

The federal minister claimed that he had collected details of Durrani’s properties on his own, whose cost ran into billions of rupees, adding he had submitted that record to the NAB in 2014.  

Swati said people like Durrani and others were responsible for the mess the country was in. 

Regarding split within JUI-F, Swati said Maulana Sherani, the leader of a group of dissidents, was an honest man under whose leadership this movement against party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman was bound to succeed. 

The federal minister said that the purpose of voicing dissent over the policies of JUI-F chief by some of his party members was not only to protect the interests of Pakistan but also to restore the image of Ulema.

He appealed to all JUI-F’s clerics to wholeheartedly support Sherani and others who had dared to differ with Maulana Fazl.