Where is Moonis Elahi?

LONDON: Former federal minister and Imran Khan’s ally Moonis Elahi has been out of Pakistan for nearly three months and he has no plans to return to the country in the immediate future as he complains of political victimisation.

Moonis Elahi left for Spain in the last week of December and spent nearly a month there. After that he travelled to London, spent time with his family and returned to Spain. He was seen in London two weeks ago with his family but it’s understood he is currently in Spain from where he has been directing his party affairs including the key decision to merge his faction of PMLQ into Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Questions have been asked where exactly he is and why he is not returning to Pakistan. Sources close to him have said that Moonis has been keeping a low profile in Europe for security reasons.

He has not engaged in any public political events after leaving Pakistan with a group of friends in a private plane, per the pictures that had gone viral. A source close to him said he has been advised not to disclose his location to anyone.

Speaking to this correspondent over the phone, Moonis Elahi said he will be back in Pakistan soon but said it was clear that the current government was involved in his victimisation. He said that several fake cases have been registered against him and people close to his father, former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, have disappeared and illegally kidnapped.

Through social media, Moonis has raised the issue of targeting of people linked with him and his father. On the weekend, he said his cousin went missing while travelling to Mandi Bahauddin from Gujrat.

This week, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) issued a call-up notice to Moonis. The anti-graft watchdog said it had called Moonis because it is probing irregularities in the transfers and contracts of the Punjab Communication and Works Department. The notice stated that kickbacks had been received in the tenders of the Highways Division. It added that Moonis will be questioned for the alleged irregularities.

Moonis Elahi said that dirty tricks were being used against him for political reasons. “These are pressure tactics. We have been under pressure to change loyalties and stay away from Imran Khan but we stand by him and will continue to do so,” he said.

Moonis said the case is ludicrous because the NAB has accused him of being present in a meeting along with Ali Sahi where Muhamad Khan Bhatti was also present and some alleged conversation took place. “An engineer in this case was picked up, tortured and made to record a false statement against me. These are political cases and have no value,” said Moonis.

Moonis said that the decision to merge the PMLQ into the PTI was made after a lot of discussions within party and Chaudhry family. “We have made this decision in principle. Imran Khan wanted us to join him. We were with him anyway. Now our alliance is more formal and we are one. My father Pervaiz Elahi has been made PTI’s president for the whole of Pakistan and that’s a good decision by Imran Khan,” he said.

It was in the middle of 2020 that Imran Khan’s government was hunting for Moonis Elahi and Assets Recovery Unit (ARU) - under Shahzad Akbar and with approval from Imran Khan - was asking the UK government as well as the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to trace any assets of Moonis to fix him.

The News had reported in September 2020 how the Pakistan High Commission in London was receiving daily calls from Pakistan to get the UK government investigate and find assets of Moonis, Pervaiz, Chaudhry Shujaat or any of the other family members. At least two requests were sent to the British government to assist in the pursuit of assets tracing and Pakistan High Commission officials were asked to carry out their own enquiries too.

Interestingly, the federal government under Imran Khan had sent the first request to the UK government’s Home Office soon after the PTI and PMLQ entered into a power coalition in Punjab and the Centre. That request was on behalf of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and another investigating agency. A similar letter was also sent to the BVI, seeking to trace out the alleged assets of Moonis. Both the Home Office and the BVI informed Pakistani officials that they were unable to trace assets but the ARU continued its efforts – until the situation improved between the Cahudhrys and the PTI government.

A source in the ARU had said that it was running the case based on the ICIJ report in April 2013 that Moonis was a shareholder of a BVI offshore company called Olive Grove Assets Ltd, set up with the help of Swiss bank UBS. Later on the same source in ARU said that its efforts had yielded no results and the UK government and the BVI didn’t return what they had been asked to.

Moonis had then told The News that all his assets and investments have been duly declared in his tax returns. He had added he was not surprised that the federal government was targeting its own allies for some unexplained reasons.