LAHORE: Director FIA Lahore and head of sugar investigation team DIG Dr Muhammad Rizwan ‘confessed’ in writing that his top investigators lacked the relevant experience to investigate the largest and most complex cases of money laundering against sugar barons, including the top political elite of Punjab, Bol News learnt.
On Wednesday, the head of the sugar investigation team Dr Rizwan wrote a letter to DG FIA Sanaullah Abbasi to retain five men of his ‘core’ team, transferred from FIA Punjab to Sindh on Tuesday, on the pretext that they had less than five years of service so FIA’s Rotation Policy 2021 does not apply on them.
Referring the clause 4(1) of the FIA Rotation Policy 2021 issued by the ministry of interior, Director FIA Lahore told DG FIA that mandatory rotation does not apply to these officers as their total length of service was less than five years which was well below 10 years period required to transfer an official out of his home province.
According to a senior FIA official, notification of transfers of the sugar inquiry team had not been cancelled yet. He said the matter was not even taken up on Wednesday at the FIA headquarters.
From Dr Rizwan’s letter, it was further confirmed that members of his ‘core’ team in high-profile sugar probe including Assistant Director Ali Mardan Shah, Assistant Director Umaid Arshad Butt, Assistant Director Sheraz Umar, Assistant Director Zawar Ahmad and Assistant Director Rana Faisal had around three years of total experience in FIA when they were selected for this all-important task to investigate Shahbaz Sharif, Jahangir Khan Tareen, families of federal ministers including Khusro Bakhtiar and Moonis Elahi, etc.
Soon after the sugar crisis hit the country in early 2020, Prime Minister Imran Khan had formed a high-powered Sugar Commission, which completed its probe by April 2020.
The Commission not only found cartelization in the sugar industry but also found multiple glaring violations of several sections of various laws to pocket several hundreds of billions of rupees.
On the recommendations of the Sugar Commission, the federal cabinet referred the matter to FIA Lahore for further probe and to fix the criminal liability on the accused persons in August 2020.
Dr Rizwan selected these junior and inexperienced ‘jewels’ from among the many senior FIA officials who had huge experience in money laundering cases. It was the FIA officials who had successfully probed fake accounts cases related to former President Asif Ali Zardari and Omni group in 2018, in which around Rs 20 billion had already been recovered from the accused persons.
According to FIA sources, Dr Rizwan was persisting hard with his top bosses that he badly needs his core team to continue the sugar inquiry which as legal experts say, did nothing since 2020 other than getting photocopies of thousands of transactions.
In the money laundering case of Shahbaz Sharif and his family, the amount of Rs 25 billion was mentioned in the FIR, which decreased to Rs 16 billion when the core team of Dr Rizwan submitted the challan a few weeks back.
Notably,64 Prosecution Witnesses (PWs) mentioned in the challan had submitted only Rs 65 million in the 28 benami accounts of employees of the Sharif family-owned Ramzan Sugar Mills (RSM). The question arises that where was a trail (witnesses) of the rest of the amount of Rs 15.94 billion and why the FIA team so far failed to collect that evidence even after more than a year and a half passed since the start of the probe.
On the other hand, sources said, newly appointed Adviser to PM on Accountability Brig (retd) Musaddiq Abbasi had visited FIA Lahore office on Wednesday. He was briefed in detail about pending high-profile cases at FIA Lahore Zone, including the Multi-billion Oil Marketing case and broadsheet case.
According to sources, Dr Rizwan and his team would brief the adviser on sugar inquiry on Thursday. As per sources, any decision to reverse or retain the transfer orders of the sugar inquiry team could be taken after the nod of the adviser.
Read more: Hareem Shah thankful to SHC for restraining FIA from taking action against her
On the other hand, a senior PTI leader, seeking anonymity, told Bol News that removing the entire sugar inquiry team and its head could be fatal for their cause at the moment as a trial in the Shahbaz Sharif case was going to start soon.
“We have been caught in a fix either to retain Dr Rizwan and his entire team or otherwise as in either case ultimately our accountability’s narrative would hit a major blow,” he said, adding, various options at the highest level were being considered, and a decision in this regard would be taken soon.
