ISLAMABAD - The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Monday demanded that details of foreign gifts received by army generals and judges should also be made public. The call of the major opposition party came a day after government disclosed the details of Toshakhana gifts retained by public office holders, politicians and some important personalities among others.
PTI senior leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry in a statement also demanded the Lahore High Court for formation of an independent judicial commission to unearth whether taxes were paid on the retained gifts and the same were declared in the annual returns by the people concerned. He further said that the list released by the government was “incomplete” as it only included records from 2002. He said that the details of the gifts retained since before 1988 should be released.
PTI Senior Vice President Chaudhry also sought an apology from the PML-N for levelling baseless allegations and running smear campaign against party Chairman Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi during the last eleven months about Toshakhana gifts. He claimed that the Toshakhana list showed as how the Nawaz Sharif family and the Zardari family robbed and looted the Toshakhana. “Out of these people, who retained Toshakhana gifts, it was only Imran Khan, who followed the legal path to acquire the gifts,” he maintained. “The true misuse of the Toshakhana was how Nawaz Sharif and Zardari took out cars from there,” he said. He further said that the price paid for the luxury vehicles was mere pennies compared to their original worth in a sheer blatant violation of the rules. “They didn’t even leave a box of pineapples,” he added. He said that a probe should also be launched against rulers whether they declared the gifts in their annual returns or not.
