An official sought the annulment of the order on Wednesday, a day after FIA officers investigating Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif and disgruntled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Jahangir Tareen were transferred.
According to the report, a federal agency director wrote to the director-general requesting that the transfer should be cancelled.
This paper said on Tuesday that the aforementioned officers were looking into significant cases, including the money laundering case involving the opposition leader and his son.
Sources within the agency claimed that they were perplexed by the decision even though the cases were nearing completion and their challans had been presented to the court.
The decision to transfer nine cops investigating high-profile cases came shortly after PM’s accountability assistant Shehzad Akbar resigned. They were assigned to additional FIA director general (South) Karachi’s command.
Syed Ali Mardan, the FIA’s assistant director in Lahore, is also a member of the JIT looking into the cases of Shehbaz, Hamza, and former FIA director general Bashir Memon. Emad Arshad and Rana Faisal, FIA Assistant Directors who were investigating key cases, were also transferred.
Other assistant directors that were transferred included Abdul Qayyum, Zawar Ahmed, Shiraz Umar, Nadeem Ahmed, and Sibghatullah Khan.
On Wednesday, it was reported that Adviser to the Prime Minister on Accountability and the Interior, Brigadier (retd) Musaddiq Abbasi, will visit the Lahore office and be briefed on major cases by Director Zone One, Dr Muhammad Rizwan. He would also be briefed on the cases against the aforementioned political leaders, as well as other matters, according to the statement.
Brig (retd) Abbasi and Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed met earlier this week, and the latter urged the newly-appointed official to work on fixing shortcomings in the prosecution process in order to “capture big fish.”
The meeting took place at a time when the ruling PTI is under scrutiny for failing to carry out its anti-corruption programme. Pakistan recently dropped 16 places on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), prompting citizens to raise concerns about the incumbent government’s anti-corruption efforts.
During the discussion, Rashid briefed Abbasi on the government’s accountability efforts, emphasising the importance of expediting the process to bring ongoing cases to a logical end.
