Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Aleem Khan, “who was a businessman and had no allegations of causing losses to the national exchequer”, should be granted bail “if suspects who had looted billions of rupees were able to secure bail with such ease”.
In a post shared on Twitter, Chaudhry said that the general perception was that Khan was being punished for a crime he did not commit just because of the noise created by the opposition.
On Feb 6, Khan was taken into custody by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials in Lahore. As per a press release issued by NAB Lahore, Khan was arrested for owning assets beyond his known sources of income.
The information minister’s tweet appeared to be a reaction to court decisions to grant various opposition party leaders bail in the past week.
On Thursday, the Lahore High Court (LHC) had suspended the life sentence handed to PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi in 2018 in the ephedrine quota case, ordering his release on bail.
On Wednesday the same court had granted Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Hamza Shahbaz pre-arrest bail till April 17 in the Ramzan Sugar Mills and Saaf Pani Company cases. The same day, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had extended the interim bail given to former president Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur in the fake bank accounts case till April 29.
