ISLAMABAD: The FIA is contemplating booking Mehwish Warriach, daughter of former federal Health Minister Naseer Khan and wife of Mohsin Warriach – the man who absconded after having allegedly depositing millions of rupees in the bank account of his spouse from the Rs3 billion he is alleged to have made by defrauding the National Insurance Company (NIC).
Part of the loot he is also alleged to have been deposited in the bank accounts of his two sisters.
Sources said that Interpol is likely to issue ‘red notices’ against Mohsin Warraich and three other accused, including former NIC chairman Ayaz Ahmed Khan Niazi, seeking their arrest and extradition to Pakistan in case they escape abroad.
According to FIA information, Niazi is allegedly hiding somewhere in Islamabad and is being protected by scions of two major politicians in return for a share in the looted NIC money.
Top officials said that FIA Director Zafar Ahmad Qureshi was removed from his post last week, after a ‘top gun’ in Islamabad contacted the FIA boss and asked him not to make any arrest in the NIC scam and let the Warriach family off the hook. The caller is said to have told the FIA chief to stop his Director Zafar Qureshi from proceeding further on the case.
But, sources said, a widely respected Mr Qureshi, had refused to fall in line and arrested nine of the 13 accused, including six directors of the corporation. A defiant Zafar Qureshi was removed by DG FIA Waseem Ahmed, who was recently brought from Karachi to head the investigation agency.
However, Mr Zafar Qureshi was reinstated on Supreme Court orders on Wednesday and now during his fresh investigations, he had found undeniable proofs about the involvement of women members of the Warriach family in the scam.
Meanwhile, a top official in Islamabad confirmed to The Express Tribune on Saturday on authority that a fresh case was being registered at FIA Lahore against Mehwish Warriach along with her arrested father-in-law Habibullah Warraich, absconding husband Mohsin Warriach and six other co-accused. Accounts of two daughters of Habibulah Warriach are also said to have swelled considerably after their borther got hold of dirty money amounting to more than Rs3 billion.
Inside sources said Mehwish and other women members of the Warriach family were not touched in the first FIR registered by FIA under which the former federal minister was arrested and his son Mohsin Warriach was declared an absconder.
FIA had registered an FIR against the father and son duo after it was disclosed that Mohsin, in active collaboration with absconding NIC chief Ayaz Ahmed Khan Niazi and scions of two top politicians, had sold 803 acres of land to the corporation for Rs1.68 billion in Lahore. The corporation was made to pay a mind-boggling price of Rs2.2 million for every kanal of land which hardly costs more than Rs200,000. Thus land worth a few million rupees, was sold for billions.
After the deal was signed, the money was initially transferred in the account of Mohsin Warriach at the Dubai Islamic Bank in Lahore from where it was transferred the same day to another account in his name. However, Mohsin Warriach never transferred the ownership of the said land in the name of NIC, even after getting Rs1.6billion.
Warriach was also involved in another dirty seal: the Warriach family again sold 20 kanals of land to NIC on payment of Rs1.2billion against a market price of just Rs400million. Thus, in two deals, NIC paid nearly Rs3 billion to the Warriach family, and on top of that the lands’ ownership rights were never transferred in the name of the insurance company.
The sources said that FIA had then taken a lenient view even after learning about the first transactions of Rs1.6billion via the accounts the daughters of Habibullah Warriach because in families where male members take major financial decisions, women do not generally have much say in such affairs.
However, sources said, FIA officials decided to book Mehwish Warraich after cash was deposited in her accounts after the conclusion of the second land deal.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2010.
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