Top FIA official probing sugar scandal removed
ISLAMABAD: Apparently giving in to the demand of over 33 lawmakers backing the estranged leader of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-insaf (PTI) Jahangir Tareen, the government has removed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officer heading probe against Tareen and his son in the sugar scam.
The significant development took place in the backdrop of a likely meeting of the “rebel” PTI lawmakers with Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“The sugar scam inquiry team head FIA Director Lahore Mohammad Rizwan has been removed from the investigation with immediate effect,” an official said.
He said Rizwan got the marching order, adding that it was the main demand of Tareen and the lawmakers who were with him.
It is yet to be confirmed whether Rizwan has also been transferred from FIA. He not only booked Tareen and his son Ali but also registered FIR against Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) President Shahbaz Sharif and his son Hamza in Rs5 billion money laundering and fraud charges in the sugar scam.
Rizwan had also laid hands on the sugar mills of power federal minister from South Punjab Khusro Bakhtiar and his family members and two sugar mills of two media houses.
The FIA investigators under Rizwan had detected Rs110 billion earned by the sugar mafia during the last one year through “speculative pricing.”
The FIA during the course of inquiry against the sugar mafia said that “it has transpired that sugar industry barons, sugar-brokers & their sata-agents (speculative pricing players), in active connivance with sugar-mills, have transformed into a clandestine sugar sata-mafia and are operating in a collusive but secret-mode, especially through electronic means/whatsapp groups to dishonestly and fraudulently maneuver, manipulate and artificially hike sugar prices, amidst hoax of impending sugar-stocks shortages (while sugar-stocks are lying ‘unsold’ or ‘sold/un-lited’ in mills & godowns and demand-supply gap is artificial).”
The inquiry reveals “the sata-mafia had already fraudulently ramped-up the (speculative) ex-mill price by Rs20/kg in last one year (from Rs70/kg on Feb 11, 2020 to Rs90 per kg on March 21, 2021; they are now conspiring to pump it upwards to Rs110 per kg in Ramadan.”
Tareen and his son are on bail till May 3 in the FIA cases.
Their active supporter Malik Nauman Ahmad Langrial said the prime minister had finally accepted the request of the parliamentarians and called all those 31 who had signed the request leter.