Hamza Shahbaz freed ater spending 20 months in jail
LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, Hamza Shahbaz, was released on bail ater spending 20 months in jail in a money laundering case.
Hamza was released ater the accountability court issued orders and dispatched them to Kot Lakhpat Jail.
The PML-N leader was welcomed by party’s vice president Maryam Nawaz outside the jail’s premises when he came out.
The Lahore High Court ( LHC) on Wednesday granted bail to Hamza in the money laundering case ater a two-member bench of the court heard his bail plea.
In a separate development, Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has asked the leadership of the Jamiat Ulemae Islam-fazl (JUI-F) to comment on the reported marriage of a 64-year-old lawmaker of the party with a minor girl.
Earlier this month, news of the marriage of a 14-year-old girl with a man about four times her age had gone viral on social media.
The bridegroom was named as JUI-F’S Maulana Salahuddin Ayubi, who had won the NA-263 Qilla Abdullah seat of Balochistan in the 2018 general elections on a ticket of the Mutahida Majlis-i-amal ( MMA).
Chaudhry said in the National Assembly (NA) the “very disturbing” news of the underage girl’s marriage had been reported in Indian media today.
He added that the reported marriage of a JUI lawmaker with a young girl, whose age he stated as 13, was a violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act. He said the government wasn’t investigating the mater but the JUI-F leadership “should only come and deny the incident before the house because Pakistan’s parliament and we are being ridiculed over this across the world.”
“My heart is saddened that we can allow such an act and expose our children like this,” he added.
In a tweet later, Chaudhry said he had “raised the issue of underage marriage by a JUI MP. I hope all sane voices in the National Assembly will take notice of this absurd act by a member of the National Assembly and will join voice to seek explanation.”
Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice Maleeka Bokhari endorsed Chaudhry’s comments on “this illegal act & criminal offence by JUI-F MP who has violated the Child Marriage Restraint Act by marrying a 13-year-old child.”