LAHORE: Former federal minister Moonis Elahi of the PML-Q recorded his statement on Thursday before the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a money laundering probe, claiming the PML-N government in Punjab had instituted a “fake” case against him to avenge the budget session ‘fiasco’.

“Besides, the PML-N is trying its best to make us switch our loyalty towards [former prime minister] Imran Khan, but it will fail,” Mr Moonis told reporters after appearing before FIA investigators and responding to their queries for over four hours.

“Since the FIA did not send me a notice in the case registered a day ago at the behest of the Sharifs, I voluntarily appeared before the agency. When the investigators ran out of questions, they started asking me the same queries again. With this case, the PML-N also wants to tarnish my image through a media trial,” the former minister claimed.

He was also handed over a questionnaire by the FIA, which he said he would return after consulting his legal team.

The PML-Q leader further said the case against him showed the frustration of the PML-N over the budget episode in the Punjab Assembly. “Today, if I tell the PML-N leadership we will support them… all such cases will be withdrawn. The real problem lies with our support to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman,” he maintained.

Moonis’s father, Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, has been consistently creating hurdles in the way of smooth functioning of the Punjab government, especially during this week’s budget session, forcing the ruling coalition to hold its own session at Aiwan-i-Iqbal where it presented the provincial budget for fiscal year 2022-23 after the governor clipped the speaker’s powers.

The PML-Q leader further said his tax returns and all records were regularly submitted to the board of revenue and the election commission so there was no anomaly in it.

Talking to Dawn, Moonis said Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah should refrain from using the FIA against political opponents at the behest of the Sharifs. “This man used to speak on every forum about the drug case against him, which he called fake, but after coming to power he submitted to the will of the Sharifs and started instituting false cases against their opponents. In fact, the Sharifs have reverted to the politics of the 1990s as they do not seem to have learnt anything from the politics of vengeance,” he added, hinting at the possibility of challenging the case in the Lahore High Court.

A PML-N insider had told Dawn that the decision to register the first information report (FIR) against Moonis was taken after a consultation among the senior Sharifs – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.

On Wednesday, the FIA had booked Moonis, Punjab Assembly Secretary Muhammad Khan Bhatti (considered close to the Chaudhrys) and six others on charges of money laundering in an alleged sugar scam. The state has been named as the complainant in the FIR.

Meanwhile, a sessions court on Thursday granted four-day physical remand of suspects Nawaz Bhatti and Mazhar Abbas to the FIA.

Published in Dawn,June 17th, 2022