A banking court in Lahore on Thursday disposed of the interim bail applications filed by Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz after both of them told the court they wanted to withdraw their petitions, reported 24NewsHD TV channel. 

Later, speaking to the media outside an accountability court (AC) in Lahore where he had gone in connection with the hearing of a money laundering case, Hamza Shehbaz, while citing Transparency International’s (TI) report as a proof, said that corruption in the country had increased by 16 times in just one year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOPVWDgjXNw

He said still Prime Minister Imran Khan said he did not accept the findings of TI’s report. “During the last PML-N government, Pakistan was on 117th position on the corruption index,” he reminded. 

Hamza went on to say that PML-N President and his father Shehbaz Sharif had installed power projects worth billions of rupees. “The state of agriculture sector of the country could be gauged from the fact that farmers now have to stand in lines to get urea,” he said, and conveyed to the prime minister that the opposition was done with all the hearings of corruption references filed against them, and now his time was up.  

PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, a co-suspect in the money laundering case along with son, however did not appear in the court and remained sitting in the car on account of sickness. 

His counsel told the court that his client was suffering from the coronavirus, and therefore, could not attend the hearing today. 

Following which, the court granted Shehbaz exemption from appearance. 

The AC then adjourned the hearing of the case until February 7.  

Meanwhile, another accountability court directed the Shehbaz Sharif family’s lawyers to give arguments in support of their petition against the freezing of the family’s assets on the next date of hearing to be held on February 4. 

The National Accountability Court (NAB) has already submitted its reply in the case. 

A NAB court had ordered the freezing of assets of members of the Shehbaz family namely Shehbaz Sharif himself, his wife Tehmina Durrani, Nusrat Shehbaz and son Hamza Shehbaz.

Reporters Jamaluddin Jamali and Shaheen Atiq