Punjab, Centre at loggerheads over ‘abduction’ of Nawaz aide

Judicial commission likely to be set up to investigate abduction of former accountant.

LAHORE:

Hostilities between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are now spilling over from the political turf onto the administrative arena, dragging even the investigative arms of the law into the confrontation.

The Punjab police has refused to appear before a joint inquiry committee (JIC) formed by the federal government to investigate the ‘abduction’ of a former accountant of the Sharif family, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The panel, which comprises officials from the Federal Investigation Agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau and police, was formed to investigate the brief abduction of Muhammad Akram, former accountant at the Sharif family-owned Ittefaq Steel Mills.

The committee was constituted on May 10 after Akram lodged a case with Shadman police station, claiming that he was abducted by unnamed FIA officials at the behest of the federal government and released after routine questioning.

Soon after the constitution of JIC, the interior ministry circulated a letter to the Punjab police chief, directors general of ISI, FIA and IB and head of FIA’s Punjab chapter. A copy of the letter is available with The Express Tribune.

The letter – titled ‘Inquiry Regarding Illegal Abduction of Muhammad Akram, Ex-Accountant, Ittefaq Steel Mills’ – says that the first meeting of the panel will be held at FIA’s Regional Office at Lahore on Friday (May 11).

Officials of the FIA, ISI, IB gathered at the same venue on that day – but nobody from the provincial police turned up. The meeting was reconvened on Saturday despite it being an official holiday.

However, the investigation officer (IO) of the case refused to appear before the JIC, saying that his bosses had stopped him from appearing before the committee. The IO, Abid Shah, confirmed to The Express Tribune that he was asked by the JIC to appear along with the case file.

The JIC members then approached the inspector general of police (IGP) and even visited his office – but he refused to see them. On a second attempt, however, the IGP did meet them but refused to extend any sort of cooperation.

In a surprising move, the Punjab home department faxed a letter to the FIA office – a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune. The letter, addressed to the federal interior secretary, asked him to join the investigation into the abduction of the Sharif family’s ex-accountant.

Subsequently, the JIC informed the federal government about the Punjab police’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation.

The committee then recommended to the federal government that a judicial commission be formed to investigate the matter, sources told The Express Tribune. The committee further proposed that a Supreme Court or high court judge head such a judicial commission.

Sources added that the government would soon constitute the proposed judicial commission after consulting chief justices of the apex court and high courts.

In the FIR registered with the Shadman police station, the complainant [Akram] claimed that his abductors appeared to be FIA officials and they wanted to extract information about the Sharif family. He also claimed that he was abducted at the behest of the federal government which wanted to implicate the Sharif family in concocted graft cases.

The episode is reminiscent of the 2010 fake plot to assassinate the then chief justice of Lahore High Court Khawaja Muhammad Sharif in which an attempt was made to implicate some federal government functionaries.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2012.