NICL scam: Moonis Elahi ups the ante against Zafar Qureshi

Petition filed earlier complained that Qureshi was biased against Moonis Elahi.

LAHORE: Moonis Elahi, the main accused in the multi-billion rupee National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam, requested for an immediate hearing of the petition regarding the removal of Zafar Qureshi who is the chief investigator in the case and the Additional Director General of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

Babar Awan, the lawyer of Moonis Elahi, filed the petition in the Supreme Court (SC) on August 17 after the court directed the government to not interrupt Qureshi as the head of the investigations in NICL case.

In the petition, Awan claimed that Qureshi was not investigating the case properly because he had become biased and requested the court to change the head of investigation team.

Awan said that earlier Qureshi had claimed that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Wajat Hussain, Pervez Elahi and Moonis Elahi would be held responsible if he dies an unnatural death, which indicated Qureshi’s biased attitude towards his client Moonis Elahi.

He added that he had confidence in rest of the probe team but the head should be changed to give a neutral impression.

The court responded by saying that the petition was not fixed for Aug 17 and shall be taken up in due course of time and will be disposed of accordingly.

Meanwhile, the meeting of the NICL investigation team was conducted at FIA Punjab office on Monday chaired by Qureshi.

During the meeting, it was revealed that the CNICs of Khadim Rasool and Adil Manzoor, both owners of fake firms, were used for opening fake accounts in two branches of Allied Bank Limited. They were also used for transferring an amount of Rs320 million from the account of Dubai Islamic Bank by Mohsin Habib Warraich, the principal accused as well as the main beneficiary in the case.

Later, this amount was reportedly withdrawn by the manager of Moonis Elahi’s firm.