No objection to Benazir case probe by UN: Shujaat

LAHORE — Pakistan Muslim League-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that his party has no objection to the PPP-led coalition’s move to get Benazir Bhutto’s assassination investigated by the United Nations.
“If they don’t trust their own investigation agencies when they are in power, we’ll not oppose their plan to involve the UN,” he said while answering a question at the Muslim League House here yesterday.
Opposition leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and former Kashmir Committee Chairman Hamid Nasir Chattha, who is now a member of the Punjab Assembly, were also present.
The PPP-led coalition plans to send a formal request to the world body to have the December 27 tragedy investigated.
Scotland Yard has already looked into the matter, but it did not fix responsibility as the matter was beyond its terms of reference.
The PPP had sent a request to the United Nations even before the elections.
However, the world body had told them that it could not undertake the responsibility unless the request had come from the government.
Chaudhry Shujaat criticised the ministry of defence for issuing a statement that Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar had never said that President Pervez Musharraf was a national asset.
The defence ministry was not supposed to make comments on the political statements of the minister, said Shujaat, who remained prime minister for two months before being replaced by Shaukat Aziz in 2004.
Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, opposition leader in the National Assembly, condemned in strongest terms mistreatment meted out to former Sindh chief minister Dr Ghulam Arbab Rahim in the Sindh Assembly. “We condemn the incident in strongest terms. The culprits should be brought to justice.”
He said it was a conspiracy against the democratic system. Pervaiz Elahi, who is also provincial president of the PML-Q, said President Musharraf had been elected for five years and he would complete his term. He rejected reports that the president would step down under pressure from the ruling coalition.
He asked the dissident members of his party to return to the party fold. “They want to come back, but are afraid of the media,” he said of over two dozen MPAs who have formed a forward bloc and are supporting the PML-N. Pervaiz Elahi said that there was no possibility of the deposed judges being restored.
He told a questioner that the Muslim League House belonged to his party and any attempt by the PML-N to take it over would be resisted.He said that Mohsin Leghari would be the PML-Q candidate for the post of Punjab Assembly speaker against PML-N’s Rana Iqbal Khan.