Pakistan : Not resigning, Nawaz Sharif says, calls emergency meeting following JIT report on Panama case

While addressing an emergency Cabinet meeting here, Sharif, 67, termed the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report a pack of “allegations and speculations”, Dawn Online reported.

Pointing to the opposition parties who have been demanding his resignation following the release of the report, Sharif said: “The people of Pakistan have elected me and only they can remove me from this post," Sharif said.

Sharif claimed that his family “earned nothing after entering politics, but lost a lot”.

He has  convened an emergency meeting of the federal cabinet on Thursday to discuss the situation and take the ministers and coalition partners into confidence.

The newspaper reported quoting its sources that the Prime Minister  is expected to seek an endorsement from the cabinet in the form of a resolution or a declaration, apart from briefing members about the party’s strategy to challenge the JIT report the Supreme Court.

The six-member JIT that probed the Sharif family’s business dealings in its 10-volume report submitted to the apex court on July 10 recommended that a corruption case should be filed against Sharif and his sons Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz, as well as daughter Maryam Nawaz, under the National Accountability Bureau ordinance 1999.

This gave rise to opposition demand for Sharif's resignation.

The JIT highlighted that the prime minister was “non-committal” about the two letters furnished before the Supreme Court by the former Qatari Prime Minister.