ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the Senate on Monday staged a walkout from the house, protesting against what it called a lopsided accountability process where favourites managed to get their undeclared offshore assets regularised but the opposition was being targeted.

Senate chairman Sadiq Sanjrani first adjourned the house to meet again after half an hour but when the senators re-assembled, the chairman ordered a count and declared that the house was not in order. He then read out the prorogation order.

There were 18 items on the agenda, but none came under discussion.

At the outset of the proceedings, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sherry Rehman said that showing the Joint Investigation Team’s (JIT) slides on a projector in the courtroom raised a big question mark and alleged that attempts were under way to make Asif Ali Zardari and the PPP leadership controversial.

None of 18 items on the agenda came under discussion

Speaking hours before former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s conviction, she said that some government ministers had been predicting a ‘historic verdict’ for several days and questioned how the ministers were already aware of the court’s decision. Ms Rehman added that the prime minister’s special assistant on accountability, Shahzad Akbar, had been holding meetings with members of the JIT and the witnesses.

She said a “witch-hunt” was in place in the name of accountability. Former prime ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto did not get justice, said the PPP leader, adding that Asif Ali Zardari had spent 12 long years behind bars, but no allegation against him could be proved. She regretted that those who abrogated the Constitution were given immunity and allowed to go abroad.

Asking why accountability was only for the opposition and why some blue-eyed leaders holding offshore accounts had been spared, she alluded towards regularisation of the undeclared property owned by Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sister abroad.

Ms Rehman said that while the PPP had always bowed down its heads before the superior courts, it questioned the fate of the Benazir Bhutto murder case. She said the crime scene had been hosed down and those under whom the administration was functioning had been given immunity.

Observing that at present accountability was being practised with double standards, she said that those who questioned it received threatening messages and were implicated in false and fabricated cases.

“We would not allow meaningless proceedings of the house. We cannot accept business as usual,” she remarked before announcing a walkout and warned that the failure to carry out across-the-board accountability would entail horrific consequences.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2018