Ephedrine case: Court tells ANF to explain Abbasi’s accounts seizure

Abbasi claims that his accounts have been frozen unlawfully

RAWALPINDI: A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday issued notices to authorities of Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) asking them to furnish their written response by September 4 in response to a petition filed by former PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi against seizure of his bank accounts.

Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmed Khan and Justice Ibadur-Rehman Lodhi of Rawalpindi bench issued notices to director general, director Rawalpindi region, area assistant director and the investigators of ANF in response to two identical petitions filed by Hanif Abbasi and his brother Basit Abbasi.

Citing ANF authorities and officials of two banks as respondents, Hanif Abbasi through his lawyer Tanveer Iqbal Khan submitted before the court that the ANF had unlawfully seized his bank accounts and assets.

He claimed that the ANF informed him through two different letters that his assets and bank accounts had been seized under relevant sections of Control of Narcotics Substance Act and under ANF Act. He said that the authorities issued no prior notices to him or his other family members.



The petitioner added that under the relevant laws, the ANF could proceed and seize the assets or accounts during the stage of the inquiry. He added that he was facing a case registered on July 21 2012 and the trial was near ending.

He claimed that it was unjust on part of the ANF to seize the bank accounts without prior inquiry or getting permission from the trial court. He said that his only source of income was from Gray’s Pharmaceuticals. The seizure of the accounts would affect his income and the income of employees of the company.

It was on August 8 that the ANF intimated Abbasi that all his assets and accounts along with that of Mehnaz Abbasi, his wife, Areeba Abbasi, his daughter, Hamas Ullah Abbasi, his son, Zoha Khalil Abbasi, his daughter, and Muhammad Basit Abbasi, his brother had been frozen.

It was in October 2014 that an ANF court in Rawalpindi indicted Hanif Abbasi and seven other accused in the case and started their formal trial. Currently the court was recording statements of prosecution witnesses.

The ANF in the investigations had declared that Hanif Abbasi obtained 500kg ephedrine for manufacturing medicines in 2010 but instead sold the chemical to narcotics smugglers.

The challan includes the statements of two officials of Arafaat Traders, the Karachi-based medicine distribution company to whom Abbasi claimed to have supplied 11,000 ephedrine-containing tablets. The officials of the distribution company denied Abbasi’s claim, the challan revealed, though previously the same company had earlier confirmed before the ANF that Abbasi had provided them ephedrine-containing tablets.

The ANF investigation report submitted with the court of law also incorporated statement of Razia Bakhtawari, the owner of D-Watson Chemist. She contradicted the statement of Abbasi of supplying the ephedrine contained medicine to her outlets.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2017.