LAHORE: A special court for banking offences on Monday granted interim pre-arrest bail to a son and two daughters-in-law of former Punjab chief minister Parvez Elahi in case of alleged money laundering till June 16 and summoned record of the case from Federal Investigating Agency (FIA).

Rasikh Elahi, his wife Zara Elahi and Tehreem Elahi, the wife of Moonis Elahi filed the petitions.

Earlier their counsel argued before that the FIA registered the case at the behest of the government only to victimize the family of the former chief minister. He said the entire case was bogus and had been recreated as a political revenge.

The counsel said the Lahore High Court had already quashed a money laundering case with the same charges. He said the petitioners wanted to join the investigation to prove their innocence but there were apprehensions of their arrest.

A report submitted by the FIA alleged that Rasikh Elahi, his wife Zara Elahi and sister-in-law Tehreem Elahi used the bank accounts of a peon of the Punjab assembly Qaiser Iqbal, to launder money. It said unexplained transactions of millions of rupees had been traced in the accounts of the peon and the children of Parvez Elahi. It alleged that the assets of the peon had been found beyond his known sources of income.

The report said the petitioners had been served with self-explanatory call-up notices to appear before the investigation team but they failed.

The FIA said the inquiry in question had no relation with any previous probe as it had been initiated against a government servant, the assembly’s peon.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023