LAHORE: Jahangir Khan Tareen, Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, and his son Ali Tareen on Saturday secured pre-arrest interim bails in three FIRs lodged against them by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the multi-billion-rupee sugar scam that also carries charges of money laundering and fraud.

Besides the duo, 17 employees of JDW Sugar Mills, owned by Tareen, have obtained pre-arrest bail in the FIRs to date. They include mill’s chief operating officer Rana Naseem Ahmad, secretary Maqsood Ahmad, accountant Ghufran Ahmad, Khurram Shahzad, Muhammad Zaheer, Akram Bhalli and Mehmood Akhtar.

A special court granted them bail in two cases till April 7 while Additional District & Sessions Judge allowed the bail till April 10. Talking to the media, Tareen said although he had been subjected to victimisation but reasons were not known to him as all the three FIRs had no relevance with the issue of sugar price, he added.

He claimed the decisions of a company could only be questioned by the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the Federal Board of Revenue.

He questioned the impartiality of the FIA’s probe and said as to why only his sugar mill was being targeted out of over 80 other mills subjected to the forensic audit. Tareen said the offence of money laundering had been included in the FIRs by designs to make a criminal case of the FIA. He also complained about being subjected to a media-trial. He alleged that the media had been directed to run fabricated news against him. However, without naming anyone, he dared the alleged instructors to compete him in the courts instead of employing mean tactics.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021