Karachi               -          Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari yesterday refused to appear before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday (today), terming the notices sent by the accountability watchdog illegal.

Addressing a press conference at the PPP Media Cell, the party chairman announced to defy the NAB notice saying it was only aimed at trying to stop him from commemorating the death anniversary of his mother, Benazir Bhutto, in Rawalpindi.

“We will observe the death anniversary of Benazir at the same venue where she was martyred and no power can stop us from doing this,” he vowed. The PPP chairperson was flanked by Senator Sherry Rehman, Sindh Minister Saeed Ghani and provincial adviser Murtaza Wahab.

The PPP chairman said that he had been cleared by the top judiciary and now call-up summon by NAB authorities in the case was only meant political victimisation. “Chief Justice has declared that inclusion of my name in JIT was injustice and now NAB’s call-up notice to me for probing into case is nothing but political victimisation,” he said.

Bilawal further claimed that whenever he took a political decision, the NAB issued notices to him. “I am not afraid of arrest and dare them to arrest me if they can,” he said adding the ‘selected’ government did not know that he would be more dangerous if arrested rather than when he was roaming free.

He said, “The government arrests anyone from the opposition parties, who is more vocal and active against the incumbent government. The opponents are put behind bars over fake cases and a media trial is launched against them,” he said.

He also lashed out at the NAB chairman and said that he told media that the winds were changing but unfortunately still no progress had been made in the Malam Jabba case, involving the top PTI leaders. He hoped that top courts would intervene and halt this process of biased accountability aimed at targeting opposition parties.

He also condemned arrest of the PML-N General Secretary Ahsan Iqbal and said Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif should return to the country to lead political activities in the current scenario.

Speaking on the issue of lawmaking over extension of the army chief tenure, the PPP chairman said that the government was not looking serious on the issue.