LAHORE: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered fresh cases against Pakistan’s leader of the opposition, Mian Shehbaz Sharif and PTI leader Jahangir Tareen along with their sons Hamza Shehbaz, Suleman Shehbaz and Ali Tareen.
FIA registered First Information Reports (FIRs) on the charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in the agency’s Anti Corruption Circle in Lahore.
Previously, the Lahore High Court has quashed the FIA inquiry against Jahangir Tareen’s JDW Sugar Mills and Shehbaz Sharif family’s Al Arabia Sugar Mills in a huge blow to the Federal Investigative Agency.
The honourable court had also cancelled the notices sent by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to the sugar mills ruling that the SECP did not operate in accordance with the law.
The FIA has now started fresh cases against the sugar barons claiming that Jahangir Tareen whose mills made 200 billion rupees in the last three years was the biggest beneficiary of the sugar crisis.
Tareen’s holdings including Jamal Din Wali (JDW) Sugar Mills controls approximately 20% of Pakistan’s sugar supply.
According to the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP), the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) which is the representative body of sugar mills is a cartel which manipulated the recent price hike with active coordination of a senior officer of JDW Sugar Mills Group.
Wajid Zia, who now serves as the Director General FIA had released a Sugar Inquiry Report which claimed that a few sugar mills, including Tareen’s mills were responsible for the sugar crisis in Pakistan by artificially increasing sugar prices.
Sources privy to the matters had previously claimed that the FIA’s behaviour was proof of the politicisation of the agency, alleging that the agency which falls under the Interior Ministry is being used to target opposition leaders in a wild political goose chase.
