Pakistan's opposition leader Shahbaz Sharif remanded for 10 days in corruption case

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which arrested the PML-N president on Friday, had sought a 15-day remand to investigate his alleged involvement in the multi-billion rupees corruption case.

MINGORA: PML-N activists here took out a protest rally here against the arrest of party president Shahbaz Sharif and called it a conspiracy against their party.

Earlier in the day, Accountability Court Judge Najmul Hasan granted a 10-day physical remand of former Punjab chief minister and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif to NAB. However, Islamabad's High Court last month suspended the jail term, and granted bail to the former three-time premier.

Yesterday, Hamza Shehbaz met Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz at their Jati Umra residence to discuss the younger Sharif's arrest.

Shahbaz was arrested Friday by NAB, the anti-graft body of Pakistan, for his alleged misappropriations in Ashiana Housing Scheme in the eastern Lahore district during his two consecutive tenures as the Punjab chief minister from 2008 to 2018, an official statement said.

On July 6, the accountability court had announced the verdict in the Avenfield reference, sentencing Mr Sharif to 10 years in prison for owning assets beyond known source income and to one year for not cooperating with NAB.

Shahbaz Sharif's vehicle returns from NAB Lahore's office. "Such actions will no more be tolerated". "This arrest which took place close to the by-elections shows that the government is scared of the PML-N".

Sharif is opposition leader in the lower house of parliament.

Salman Shehbaz and key members of the Sharif family were also present during the meeting.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said Shehbaz Sharif's is the first of several prominent arrests which will be made. They informed the speaker that a requisition for convening the session had already been submitted to the NA Secretariat. In a statement, the PML-N Parliamentary Party said that the "unfortunate history of using NAB against political opponents was being repeated. PTI is responsible for this political victimisation and should be ready to reap what it is sowing today", he said.

During an informal chat with reporters on Saturday, PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had said the procedure adopted for the arrest of the opposition leader was improper, adding that it appeared prima facie that the law had not been followed in the matter.