ISLAMABAD: Amid allegations of wrongdoing in the Rawalpindi Ring Road scandal, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Syed Zulfiqar Bukhari on Monday announced to step down from his public office till the inquiry into the scam is completed.
Bukhari was away from mainstream media for the past four days due to rumours of his alleged role in the scam and was also not visible in the Prime Minister’s House. However, since these allegations took a new turn in the past two days as media reports emerged, Zulfi Bukhari met Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday and informed him about his decision of stepping down due to the allegations.
Later, Bukhari took to the social media site, Twitter, to announce his resignation from the office.
“My Prime Minister has always said that if a person has been named rightly or wrongly in any inquiry he should cease to hold any public office till his name has been cleared of charges. Owing to the allegations in ongoing (Rawalpindi) Ring Road inquiry I want to set this example …,” he said.
“by resigning from office until my name is cleared up of any allegations and media’s obnoxious lies. I reiterate that I have nothing to do with Ring Road or any ongoing Real Estate project. This time the inquiry should be done by capable personnel, I endorse a judicial inquiry,” he wrote in a subsequent tweet.
“I’m here to stay in Pakistan and stand united with the Prime Minister and his vision. I sacrificed my life overseas to come and serve my country, I am ready to face any inquiry,” he concluded.
Sources in the federal cabinet informed Pakistan Today that Bukhari had been missing from the political scene since the rumours started doing rounds in the government circles.
“Prime Minister Imran Khan was also unhappy with the featuring of Zulfi in the scam. It seems that Prime Minister’s closest confidants are being targeted one by one into scams and some quarters are framing close confidants of the premier to isolate him in power corridors. First, it was Jahangir Khan Tareen who was targeted and shunted out. Now it is Zulfi Bukhari and tomorrow it may be someone else,” said one of the sources
Another source said that Rawalpindi Commissioner Syed Gulzar Hussain Shah, in the fact-finding commission, had implicated Bukhari without any evidence.
The source said that however Rawalpindi Deputy commissioner and assistant commissioners of Rawalpindi and Attock had refused to sign the fact-finding commission report and hence the report had no credibility.
“Technically, it’s not a report of a fact-finding commission as three members of the commission have refused to sign the report,” the source said.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Imran ordered a full-fledged inquiry into the RRR project scam after which the Punjab government decided to send the case to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) or the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for a thorough investigation.
The decisions were taken as two fact-finding reports — one by the Rawalpindi commissioner and the other by the deputy commissioner — landed at the prime minister office, with the second report hinting that the project had been realigned with the approval of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and his finance adviser Dr Salman Shah.
However, the PML-N demanded action against the relevant authorities for approving the ring road’s realignment, asserting that neither Chief Minister Buzdar and Prime Minister Imran nor “direct beneficiaries” such as cabinet members Ghulam Sarwar Khan and Bukhari should be exempted.
PML-N Deputy Secretary-General Attaullah Tarar had alleged that both Bukhari and Khan had received huge financial benefits through the ring road project because their lands were near the project.
