A local court of Islamabad on Monday granted physical remand of 17 Axact employees to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for seven days. FIA produced the Axact employees before judicial magistrate Rasool Buksh Mir Jatt in connection with the alleged sale of bogus degrees. It had sought a two-week physical remand. The investigation officer informed the court that the accused were booked for fraud, cheating, impersonation and money laundering offences.
The Axact employees contended that they were only following orders. One of the accused told the judge that he was working as an intern in the software company. Axact's counsel Saad Hassan informed the court that the 17 were junior employees who have nothing to do with policy matters and decision-making; and further contended that they were interrogated for over 20 days on a daily basis and were co-operating with FIA. The Judge inquired why the investigation officer did not arrest senior level officials to which the FIA officer replied that the arrests had been made after thorough investigations. The court directed FIA to produce the accused persons before the court in next week.