Daily Times

KARACHI: As many as 86 senior leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), including the central leaders of its all four factions, have been shortlisted by the Counter Terrorism Wing (CTW) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a money laundering case.

The agency is investigating whether Rs6 billion transferred by these leaders to the party’s London secretariat, using the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation, were funds collected in charitable activities or through extortion and other illegal means.

Those shortlisted include Farooq Sattar, Amir Khan, Khalid Maqbool Siddique, Mustafa Kamal, Babur Ghouri, Rauf Siddique, Sagheer Ahmed, Mohammad Shahid, Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Tahir, Manzoor Ahmed, KafeelWara, Rauf Mughal, Kamal Siddiqui, Rafiq Rajput and Mohammad Imran.

Others facing the inquiry include party MNAs, MPAs, senators, and some sector and unit incharges.

As many as 52 of these leaders have been summoned up till now through the notices for their written statements. Of these, 20 have submitted their written statements to the Islamabad based team.

In the first phrase of the investigation, the FIA team has shortlisted MQM leaders who made bank transactions in millions of rupees. Those who sent smaller sums will be grilled later, Daily Times has learnt.

The money laundering case was registered against MQM founder Altaf Hussain and KKF at Karachi’s FIA State Bank Circle (SBC) in 2017 based on a written statement of Sarfaraz Merchant, a UK based businessman. The case was later transferred to the FIA’s Counter-Terrorism Wing Islamabad and a team of CTW Karachi was deputed to collect relevant data and record evidence.

“These 86 members are from all four groups including MQM-London, MQM-PIB (Farooq Sattar group), MQM-Bahadurabad (Amir Khan Group) and Pak-Sarzameen Party (PSP) headed by Mustufa Kamal,” senior officials told Daily Times.

An officer privy to the matter said that FIA team had collected data of funds transferred into the KKF’s account during 2013 to 2015. These funds were later transferred to UK-based accounts of Sun Academy and some individuals accounts.

The official said the funds were shown as charity but the agency was probing whether they had been collected through extortion and other illegal means.

Earlier last month, the Federal Investigation Agency had summoned Dr Saghir along with 10 senior MQM members including Sagheer Ahmed, Mohammad Shahid, Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Tahir, Manzoor Ahmed, Kafeel Wara, Rauf Mughal, Kamal Siddiqui, Rafiq Rajput and Mohammad Imran through a notification which came as an important development in the money laundering.

Kaiful Wara, a member of the KKF, was questioned for almost three hours at FIA’s headquarter in Islamabad regarding the accusations, which included collecting funds through extortion and china-cutting, and sending them to UK through KKF accounts.

According to FIA, Wara admitted during the probe that various individuals were given the responsibility to collect and deposit money in the charity’s accounts, which was then transferred to the UK. The FIA officials further said that no documentation or slips could be produced by MQM members in support of their stance that funds transferred were collected in philanthropic endeavours.

A British investigative agency had dropped the money laundering case against the MQM founder in October 2016, however, the FIA continued its probe.

Published in Daily Times, March 3^rd 2018.