Interior Minister Naqvi, PPP's Bilawal, and PTI's Marwat claim that the properties listed in the data are already declared.
Some of the Pakistani officials identified in the data have played down the development, arguing that there was nothing wrong with the practice and that assets under their names had already been declared, following the revelation of an astonishing amount of data about homes owned by foreigners in Dubai.
The information, which was mostly from 2020 and 2022, gives a thorough picture of hundreds of thousands of properties in Dubai as well as details about who owns them or how they are used. The data was disclosed on Tuesday. The Centre for Advanced Defence Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit organisation that studies international crime and conflict with its headquarters in Washington, D.C., acquired it.
Prominent figures include PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, his siblings Bakhtawar and Aseefa Bhutto Zardari; Ms Ashraf, wife of Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi; MNA Ikhtiar Baig; son of Hussain Nawaz, President Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N; son of General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa and Saad Siddique Bajwa; Senator Faisal Vawda, Sardar Sanaullah Zehri, Akhtar Mengal, and PML-N MNA Ehsanul Haq Bajwa are notable figures.
Zulfikar Ali Bader, a spokesman for Bilawal, responded an hour after the information was made public, stating that both Aseefa and the former foreign minister had previously disclosed all of their assets, both foreign and domestic, to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).
He stated that the data was "already in the public domain" and that it contained "nothing new or illegal." The information was accessible on the ECP website, he added.
According to Bader, the two brothers' upbringing in exile and subsequent residence on the property referenced in the report—which their mother, the late prime leader Benazir Bhutto, eventually inherited following her assassination—were known to the public.
The representative for Bilawal had issued a warning, saying, "Any action or insinuation based on defamation will be challenged in the relevant forums."
Sherry Rehman, the vice president of the PPP, reiterated Bader's remarks in a statement posted on the party's X account today, calling the data a “failed attempt to find corruption” in Bilawal's properties.
According to the former minister of climate change, Benazir identified her children as the heirs of property she had purchased while living in exile in Dubai.
"What was demonstrated by incorporating information about Aseefa and Bilawal Bhutto's assets, which was already on the ECP website, in the Dubai leaks?" Asking Rehman. She said that for all of their holdings, the two siblings pay taxes on a monthly basis.
The interior minister, Naqvi, maintained that the house in Dubai that was purchased under his wife's name was "fully declared and listed in tax returns."
Additionally, it was said in returns that the Punjabi caretaker chief minister turned in to the ECP. The funds from the property's sale a year ago were used to buy a new property, he added.
Sher Afzal Marwat, the maverick of the PTI, admitted to owning an apartment in Dubai and said that it had been registered with the FBR and ECP for the previous six years.
"It can be verified through the FBR and ECP," he declared.
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