FIA serves Tarin another notice

The Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) Cybercrime Wing on Wednesday again issued summons to former finance minister Shaukat Tarin for Thursday (today) to record his statement in the controversial audio clips attributed to him as he failed to appear on the first one.

The Cybercrime Wing had intercepted a phone call between the former federal minister and his provincial counterpart in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Taimur Jhagra. The phone call is being viewed as an alleged attempt to create problems between the federal government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Earlier on Tuesday, Tarin was issued a summons for 10am on Wednesday but he did not show up until 12:30am. Later, he contacted the inquiry team and informed them that he did not receive any notice.

The FIA team then issued him a new summons to his address in Karachi under his legal name and mentioned his Computerised National Identity Card number. They asked him to appear at the FIA Cybercrime Reporting Centre Islamabad on Thursday to record his statement.

The notice also mentions the allegations against him, adding that the inquiry had been initiated against him for trying to incite Jhagra to write to the federal government that the budget surplus would not be returned to them in order to create problems with the IMF.

The investigation related to two audio clips surfaced last month wherein a man purportedly the former finance minister could be heard guiding K-P and Punjab’s finance ministers to tell the federal government that they would not be able to commit to a provincial budget surplus as the two provinces were hit hard by floods.