RAWALPINDI: The immigration staff of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday offloaded daughter and three grandchildren of prominent lawyer and politician Ahmed Raza Kasuri from a Bangkok-bound plane.

The names of two of the children, Fahid Tariq, 5, Minahil Tariq, 7, were placed on exit control list (ECL) allegedly on the request of their father.

Later, the mother along with her two-year-old son Moosa Tariq was also off-loaded from Thai Airways plane.

When contacted, Kasuri, member of Pervez Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League, strongly condemned the government’s move to place the names of his two innocent grandchildren on ECL as they had never been involved in any crime.

“Though it was a family issue between my daughter and her husband who have been separated now, I have been looking into the matter to ascertain whether or not it has any political link,” Mr Kasuri said.

He said his daughter was going abroad for ten days.

He further said his daughter’s husband was behind the move as he had already tried to stop Nadra from issuing their passports but his move was set aside by the Islamabad High Court.

“My daughter is taking up the issue with the interior minister,” Kasuri said.

Bilal Aslam, additional director immigration, while talking to Dawn, confirmed that the woman passenger and her three children, traveling for Bangkok, were off-loaded after the names of her two children were on the ECL.

He said: “On the ECL, it was mentioned to arrest the two, but the immigration sent them to the FIA’s passport cell for further proceeding.”

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2015

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