Hajj scam: Investigation widens to include new culprits

FIA asks interior ministry’s permission to question State Minister for Religious Affairs Shagufta Jumani.

ISLAMABAD: In an interesting twist to the Hajj scam, investigators are learnt to have sought permission to interrogate State Minister for Religious Affairs Shagufta Jumani after they found that her brother might have received a portion of bribes paid in connection with the Hajj scam.

One of the top officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said that they had collected “evidence proving that Mehfooz Jumani received 300,000 Saudi riyals from the Pakistani Hajj mission in Madinah,” adding that investigations in Saudi Arabia were far from over.

He said that a two-member FIA team, which is currently in Saudi Arabia collecting details, learnt that the embezzled amount exceeded Rs200 million, far more than previous estimates of Rs120 million.

After scrutinising accounts of tour operators, hotel owners and other officials of the Hajj mission officials, the FIA team concluded that the money had been illegally transferred.

The team, comprising Khalid Rasool and Mian Mohammad Sabir, will submit a preliminary report to the Supreme Court by January 6, he added.

The FIA team, he said, was likely to request the apex court to direct the interior ministry to issue notice to state religious affairs minister and urge her to cooperate with the FIA team, adding that the agency was preparing a questionnaire for the minister which will be sent to her after the approval of the interior ministry.

Meanwhile, State Minister for Religious Affairs Shagufta Jumani rejected allegations levelled by the FIA and said that she had not taken “a single penny from any person”.

Terming the move an attempt to defame her, she said she had nothing to do with the Hajj scam and “jealous officials” were trying to frame her.

Describing charges against her to be baseless, she said: “God knows I did not commit any wrongdoing.”

Officials also said that the FIA team, which left for Makkah last month, also recorded statements of tour operators, property dealers and owners of certain buildings rented by the Hajj Mission.

Saudi officials, FIA officers said, had traced payments of some one million riyals to Pakistani officials in Jeddah. The money was illegally transferred from various accounts, they said.

The FIA also found irregularities in selection of 1,150 pilgrims through quotas reserved for labourers, Hajj Foundation, the prime minister’s secretariats and the presidency.

The Agency has also finished the scrutiny of accounts of former federal minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi and his family.

FIA has so far arrested former director-general Hajj Rao Shakeel, joint secretary Raja Aftab and Kazmi’s brother-in-law Abdullah Khokhar.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2011.