Tareen wonders…: Why only my mill, if there’s no issue with 80 others

LAHORE: Well-known parliamentarian, industrialist and a sugar baron Jahangir Khan Tareen Saturday claimed that fake cases had been registered against him to damage his reputation. Talking to the media after appearing in two different courts along with his son Ali Khan Tareen and getting pre-arrest bails, Tareen questioned as to why his sugar mills were being "tossed around" this way. "Is there no issue with the remaining 80 sugar mills," he asked.

He claimed that he was aware of the fact how fake news were spread against him in the media, and phone calls were made to malign his name.

Tareen claimed that the cases against him and his son had nothing to do with an increase in the sugar prices. “I have nothing to do with all three FIRs registered against me,” he added. He said that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was challenging the decisions pronounced in favour of his company 10 years back, though it had no mandate to do so. He said that was the domain of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) or the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). Tareen alleged that the FIA added ‘money laundering’ word in the case against with mala fide intentions to take over the cases and conduct investigations against him. “We have presented ourselves before the court and we will prove it in the courts of law that false cases have been registered against us,” Jahangir Tareen added. He questioned that where those names were now which had surfaced during the forensic audit of the FIA in the sugar scam.

Tareen said that he was being subjected to media trial so that his reputation could be damaged.

The FIA had registered two separate cases against the father-son duo on the charges of committing fraud and money laundering worth Rs3.14 billion. The FIA registered the cases against them under the PPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating of public shareholders) and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), read with sections 3/4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.