Lax controls: Central figure in NICL scam flees to Dhaka

The company’s ex-chairman left the country despite his name being on ECL.

KARACHI: Former National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) chairman and central suspect in its financial scandal, Ayaz Khan Niazi has managed to evade the Exit Control List (ECL) and flee the country.

Niazi had been facing corruption charges involving billions of rupees, in Karachi and Lahore, along with several other persons. His name had been included in the ECL along with other accused in the NICL scandal on the Supreme Court (SC) orders.

Sources told The Express Tribune, however, that the Karachi cases had gone without court hearing because no judge had been appointed as yet.

It is this lapse that allowed Niazi to arrange bail for all the cases against him.  He also succeeded in obtaining a written permission to leave the country for ‘one time only’ despite his name being on the ECL.

According to the sources, he availed this opportunity, leaving for Dhaka on March 24 by PIA’s flight PK-226.

Niazi had disappeared once before as well, around the time the cases were registered and his name was placed on the ECL. He went into hiding, but subsequently offered himself for arrest.

The cases against him and the others were registered by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) following a probe into the NICL scandal. The SC had taken suo motu notice of the scandal and directed the FIA to conduct an investigation into the matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2012.