ISLAMABAD: Five days after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani took the federal cabinet into confidence over allegations about the involvement of his son in the ephedrine import scam, the Anti-Narcotics Force expanded the scope of its investigations to the Prime Minister’s House, Dawn has learnt.
On Monday, the chief security officer at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat received a letter from the ANF, asking him to provide complete record of visitors to the PM’s House.
Through the letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn, ANF Joint Director Lt-Col Syed Touqir Abbas Zaidi, while referring to a case registered at the ANF police station, Rawalpindi, has asked the chief security officer “to provide PM’s House entry record from January 2009 to date”.
The ANF official has stated that the “information is required in official capacity” under various provisions of Control of Narcotics Act, 1997. The chief security officer has been informed that ANF assistant director Inamullah Khan has been “detailed to take over the record from the concerned staff”. The letter, however, makes no mention of any deadline for collection of the record.
A source close to the prime minister told Dawn that Mr Gilani was upset over the move and was likely to take some “legal measures” against the officials for writing such a letter to the country’s chief executive. “It is a joke that the prime minister has been asked to produce otherwise a secret record.”
Moreover, he said, it seemed that the ANF had asked for the record on its own as there had been no such directives from any court.
A senior official in the Ministry of Narcotics Control told Dawn that the ANF had sought the record of visitors because it had come to its knowledge that some of the suspects in the ephedrine import scam had been frequently visiting the PM’s House.
In reply to a question, he agreed that the ANF should not have sent the letter directly to the PM’s Secretariat and that it should have been routed through the ministry under which the ANF was functioning.
On April 9, the government had removed two ANF officials who were investigating the Rs7 billion scam of illegal sale of ephedrine, a controlled substance used in medicines. Media reports have been accusing the prime minister’s son, Ali Musa Gilani, of involvement in the scam.
The officials were removed from their positions four days after the removal of ANF Director General Maj-Gen Shakeel Hussain, apparently for the same reason.
The two officials were removed even though the force, led by military officials, had challenged the removal of its chief in the Supreme Court.
According to sources, the ANF chief’s removal was made in the wake of his assurance to the Supreme Court during hearing of the ephedrine quota scam that he would proceed against all influential people in accordance with the law.
The scam came to light earlier this month when the ANF informed a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, that the ephedrine quota worth Rs7 billion was given to two Multan-based companies on the pressure of an influential person.
The case was registered on October 10 last year after two pharmaceutical companies – Danas Pharmaceutical and Berlex Lab International – were held responsible for obtaining export quotas for the drug in collusion with the health ministry officials that exceeded the limits fixed by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).
The INCB had fixed a quota of 22,000kg of ephedrine for Pakistan for 2010-11, but the ministry of health allocated a quota of around 31,000kg after devolution.
The apex court has summoned the record for a hearing on April 20.
