Inquiry initiated against FIA officers over authority misuse

KARACHI: An inquiry against FIA Karachi officers has been initiated for misuse of authority after a wife of a businessman from Rawalpindi alleged that her husband was illegally arrested, detained and implicated in three cases.

According to the official correspondence and documentary evidence available with The News, Asifa Azhar, wife of Asif Azhar, approached the Islamabad High Court for the alleged illegal arrest, detention and registration of three fake cases against her husband by FIA, Karachi officials.

The IHC ordered the director general FIA to inquire into the matter. Following this, DG FIA Mohsin Butt initiated the preliminary inquiry and heard the viewpoints of all the concerned parties, including petitioner Asifa Asif Azhar, IO of all three cases, in charge of Anti-Human Trafficking Circle FIA, Karachi on January 1, 2023, and asked the director anti-Human Smuggling, Islamabad for a detailed inquiry into the matter.

Asif Azhar's wife in her statement accused Azhar was taken away by some unknown persons from his office in the Saddar area of Rawalpindi, but FIA Karachi showed his arrest from Railway Station Cantonment, Karachi. In order to corroborate her claim, she also produced CCTV footage of her husband’s office, wherefrom her husband was taken away by some unidentified persons.

Besides, she also claimed that the ticket produced by the FIA was also bogus as the railway operations between Karachi and Rawalpindi were suspended on the given time and date due to heavy rains in Sindh. She alleged that the FIA Karachi officials kept her husband in illegal detention for seven days and then registered two anti-human trafficking cases and one money laundering case.

On the other hand, IO Mansoor Abbasi denied the allegations before the DG FIA and said that Asif Azhar was arrested by a raiding team led by Sub-Inspector Khurram Islam on August 22, 2022, from Railway Station Cantonment, Karachi and a ticket of Pakistan Express on his name was also recovered from him.

Given the situation, DG FIA, Mohsin Butt directed the director of Anti-Human Smuggling (AHS) FIA Headquarters Islamabad to conduct a thorough inquiry and submit a comprehensive report along with specific recommendations to him within 15 days.

However, the sources from FIA told ‘The News’ that the accused Asif Azhar was being punished due to a business rivalry of his brother Arif Azhar with a powerful businessman of Sindh province and all the cases registered against him were fake.