Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday arrested Security & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) chairman Zafar Hijazi from outside a special court in Islamabad after his bail application was rejected.A close trusted aide of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has been found tampering record of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan to favour the ruling family and save them from money laundering investigations.
A probe conducted by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) found Muhammad Zafar-ul-Haq Hijazi, Chairman SECP, guilty of tampering records regarding closure of investigations of the companies owned by the Sharif family.
SECP had started investigations against two Sugar Mills of Sharif family for money laundering in 2011.
However, when it was revealed in ARY’s Programme “PowerPlay” by investigative journalist Arshad Sharif that probe has been put on the back burner, Chairman SECP called a meeting the very next day after airing of programme and instructed his staff to close the investigations.
Evidence gathered by FIA has revealed that on the instructions of Chairman SECP, investigations were closed in back dates of 2013 and emails dated 29th and 30 June 2016, retrieved from server of SECP, also affirm that.
Chairman SECP, Zafar Hijazi, is an old associate of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Samdhi of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
FIA team had found SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi guilty of misconduct by passing illegal orders and pressuring his subordinates to do illegal acts.
On June 19, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan had directed the FIA Director General to inquire into the charge sheet by the JIT that the SECP had tampered with the records to favour the Sharif family.
The four member FIA team found Chairman SECP guilty of the charge initially brought before the Supreme Court by the JIT.
It is yet to be seen if Zafar Hijazi would be become an approver and name the persons of the ruling family or old associate Ishaq Dar on whose instructions he tampered the record? Or to save the job of his son in SECP, would Zafar Hijazi concede that he tried to act more loyal to the king than the king himself.
