Top loan defaulters held in Pak

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17 (PTI) — Pakistan’s military regime today swooped on leading politicians and industrialists on loan default arresting some of them in a nationwide crackdown launched hours after the expiry of a deadline for voluntary returns which yielded minimal response.

The drive against big loan defaulters coincided with the promulgation of a harsher anti-corruption law providing for barring of economic offenders from holding public office for 21 years and imprisonment for up to 14 years.

The crackdown began early today after the four-week deadline set by Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf for voluntary returns of the dues expired at midnight, according to official sources.

The arrested included Central Information Secretary of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Haji Nawaz Khokar, former central minister and a senior leader of breakaway faction of Pakistan Muslim League Anwar Safullah, leader of Awami National Party Bashir Bilour, former Baluchistan minister Ghulam Sarwar Khakar, noted industrialist Asif Saigal and former chairman of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Waqar Azim.

The crackdown was launched soon after a high-level meeting chaired by Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider and attended by Director-General of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Mali Asif Hayaat and other top officials.

The ordinance also provides for setting up of a national accountability bureau to expeditiously pursue all cases of economic offences with retrospective effect from January 1, 1985.

The meeting decided that the arrested persons would be tried under the new law.

The authorities have also sealed all exit points of the country with strict vigil being maintained at the international airport to prevent anybody escaping out of country.

The newly-created National Accountability Bureau is monitoring the crackdown which is being described as first of its kind to recover huge loans, a major portion of which is due with the leading business families of the country.

A report by the State Bank of Pakistan had earlier said at least 1,500 persons owed nearly 80 per cent of the total bad loans of the public sector banks and that the major portion of these loans had been sanctioned during the civilian rule of the past six years.

The total bad loans of the bank was Rs 80 billion in 1993 and it ballooned to Rs 211 billion as per the latest figures and almost all big business houses of the country including the family of deposed Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto figures in the list of defaulters.

Pak court rejects plea against coup

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17 (DPA) — Pakistan’s Supreme Court today rejected a petition filed by a member of deposed Premier Nawaz Sharif’s party, asking it to declare last month’s military coup unconstitutional.

The court cited legal shortcomings in the plea made by Mr Zafar Ali Shah, a deputy in the suspended parliament.

Gen Pervez Musharraf toppled Sharif’s government on October 12.

The military ruler suspended federal and provincial legislatures and set up a National Security Council (NSC) — a supreme decision-making body comprising of members of the armed forces and civilians.

In a proclamation after the coup, General Musharraf allowed the courts to function but placed his authority above them as unchangeable.

No early civilian rule: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17 (PTI) — Pakistan’s military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf today ruled out any immediate restoration of democracy in the country and an end to army rule, saying that he had a "gigantic task" at hand for economic and political revival of the nation for which it is "not possible" to give any time frame.

Addressing senior armed forces officers at Rawalpindi today, he also said his top priorities included "identifying economic revival, provincial disharmony and re-structuring of present political system," according to a press note by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

"It is not possible to give out any time frame for the completion of this gigantic task," General Musharraf said.

The international community while expressing its concern over the army takeover in Pakistan had been pressing General Musharraf to give a time frame for the restoration of democracy.