LONDON: Former Finance Minister of Pakistan, Ishaq Dar, slammed the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) led government by Prime Minister Imran Khan, terming it a “fascist government”.
In an interview with BBC’s hit show, Hard Talk which has now gone viral on social media, Ishaq Dar told BBC’s anchor Stephen Sackur that he owned no property in London while he only had one residential property in Pakistan.
When asked how many properties Ishaq Dar and his family owned, he replied, “My net worth is what has been declared in my tax returns”.
When Sackur pushed the question again, Dar said that he owned only one property while sons, Ali Dar and Mujtaba Dar, who were in business for the last 17 years owned a villa in Dubai.
Dar schooled Sackur on the alleged abuses carried out by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), under whose watch over a dozen suspects of corruption have lost their lives.
“Google it”, Dar told Suckur in the confrontational interview which has also led to a lot of criticism back home in Pakistan.
Various people who were investigated by NAB had lost their lives in custody.
Engineer Aijaz Memon, Advocate Zafar Iqbal Mughal, Raja Asim, Muhammad Nasir Sheikh and various other accused have died in NAB custody.
While some consider foul play in those cases, Brigadier (R) Asad Munir, a former Pakistani intelligence officer committed suicide after being hounded by NAB. He left a suicide note addressed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan alleging that NAB had no professionalism.
“I am committing suicide to avoid humiliation, being handcuffed and paraded in front of media,” Brigaider Asad Munir had written.
“I am giving my life in the hope that you the honorable Chief Justice will bring positive changes in the system where incompetent people are playing with the life and honour of citizens in the name of accountability,” read the suicide note.
The interview was criticised by the PTI, who mentioned that, “Karma hit Ishaq Dar”.
Meanwhile, Dar’s son, Ali Dar quotes his father’s interview, focusing on the point of how Pakistan had witnessed negative GDP growth for the first time since 1952.
“It is a matter of non-performance, it is a matter of incompetence, it is a matter of ruining & grounding the economy of Pakistan in 2 years; and mind you, it happened before corona. After 1952, Pakistan has seen negative GDP Growth for the first time,” Ali Dar tweeted quoting Ishaq Dar.
Hitting back at the controversy generated over the interview, Ishaq Dar said that only 2-3 minutes of the interview were making rounds on news channels while sharing the full interview for context.
