Moonis Elahi connection: Chaudhrys’ clout tames lawmakers

The Senate committee on commerce posed no queries regarding Moonis’ investigation in the NICL scam.

ISLAMABAD: The political clout of the Chaudharys of Gujrat apparently forced seven members of a Senate committee to overlook allegations of corruption against Moonis Elahi.

None of the members of the Senate committee on commerce asked the FIA director Zafar Ahmed Qureshi regarding the  investigation of the son of the former chief minister, Pervaiz Elahi. He allegedly received Rs230 milion in the multi-billion-rupee National Insurance Corporation (NIC) scam as his “share”.

Behind-the-scenes efforts were made to keep the FIA director away from Friday’s meeting in a bid to keep him from giving damaging information about Moonis Elahi’s role in the scam, according to sources. When they failed to stop him from attending the meeting, DG FIA Waseem Ahmed was specifically “sent” to ensure his subordinate’s silence.

The presence of three PML-Q heavyweights – Haroon Akhar, Gulshan Saeed and Seemi Siddiqi – may have helped the ‘cause’ of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat. Moonis Elahi’s name was not mentioned even once during the entire meeting.

The meeting was also attended by PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar, Mohammad Ali of the Fazlur Rehman faction of the JUI and Raza Khan from Fata. Surprisingly, they too kept quite over the matter.

The media representatives found the legislators’ silence more disturbing because the meeting had been called by them to get an update from the investigation agency, FIA.

The committee, which had applauded Qureshi in its previous meeting, to the extent that lawmakers had recommended the government to decorate him for his efforts to recover Rs1.68 billion from the Warraich family, was disconcertingly disinterested this time around. Except for Senator Seemi Siddiqi, no one praised him in the meeting for single handedly recovering the entire amount from the absconding accused.

Sources said that Qureshi had ‘displeased’ political forces after he ‘dared’ to send a questionnaire to Moonis Elahi in the light of his company manager’s statement. After Qureshi refused to fall in line, the Chaudharys used their political powers and senators were told to let go of the issue, sources said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2011.