The National Assembly Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat Friday expressed serious concern over delay in finalisation of inquiry into the incident of recovery of 27 kilograms of heroin from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft and decided to bring the issue into the notice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for necessary instructions to departments concerned so that the culprits could be brought to book.
The committee met with MNA Rana Muhammad Hayat Khan in the chair at Parliament House where it expressed its displeasure over the lack of co-ordination among departments responsible for security and prevention of smuggling at airports. The representative of Customs Intelligence apprised the committee that two of the accused, as identified by Joint Investigation Committee, have been arrested whereas efforts are being made to arrest the rest of the accused. The committee was further informed that Ministry of Interior has been requested to place the names of all accused on Exit Control List (ECL) while details of properties and bank accounts of the absconders have been sought from State Bank of Pakistan and Bahria Town for further appropriate legal action against them as well as their associates/facilitators.
The committee observed that there is a lack of co-ordination among the departments responsible for security of airports, prevention of smuggling and narcotics which resulted in recovery of huge quantity of drugs from the PIA aircraft. The committee directed the relevant departments to strengthen co-ordination, vigilance and mechanisms to counter air carriage of drugs and contrabands to foreign countries.
The committee also directed Airport Security Force to enforce stringent security procedures to prevent recurrence of such instances in the future, and decided to discuss this issue in its next meeting. Later, the Chief Executive Operating Officer, Pakistan International Airlines briefed the committee about the financial state of PIA and its plan of induction of new aircraft. He apprised that under the guidance of the present government, the PIA is in process of recovery and its financial state has improved, besides improvement in flight operation and passenger facilitation.
He further apprised the committee that due to initiation of the PIA Premier Service from Lahore and Islamabad, the airline was gaining its market share which it had lost during the turbulent period.
He informed the committee that presently, the PIA is operating with 33 aircraft and the number would be brought to 50 by June 2018 and flights to major destinations would also be started. The committee directed the PIA administration to give a detailed briefing over the financial state of the airline during the next meeting. The meeting was attended by MNAs Malik Abrar Ahmed, Parveen Masood Bhatti, Nighat Parveen, Seema Mohiuddin Jameeli, Farhana Qamar, Rana Muhammad Qasim Noon, Dr Mahreen Razaque Bhutto, Maulvi Agha Muhammad and Syed Ali Raza Abidi, joint secretary Aviation Division and representatives from the FBR, ANF, ASF and other senior officers of departments concerned.
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