CJP crashes Sharjeel Memon’s ‘sick party’

• Justice Nisar recovers three liquor bottles, drugs from PPP MPA’s ‘sub-jail room’ at Ziauddin Hospital in Karachi
• Police arrest two, including Memon’s driver, who claimed bottles contained ‘honey and oil’

KARACHI: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) imprisoned MPA Sharjeel Inam Memon, who was at Karachi’s Ziauddin Hospital on the pretext of illness, was found in possession of “liquor bottles and drugs” after Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar paid a surprise visit to the hospital he was being treated in.

“When Sharjeel Memon was asked about the liquor, he said they were not his,” Justice Nisar said, relating his surprise early-morning visit before hearing cases at the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry.

Memon, who had been in judicial custody at the Ziauddin Hospital’s Shirin Jinnah branch, where his room had been declared a sub-jail, was sent back to jail soon after the incident. The CJP addressed the newly-appointed attorney general and said, “Anwar Mansoor Khan give a little attention to this issue as well.”

After the notice by the CJP, the Sindh chief secretary and Prisons Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Aftab Pathan reportedly reached the hospital in an effort to recover the “evidence”.

SSP South Omar Shahid Hamid said they’d collected blood samples from Memon and that “there will be an inquiry” and “action will be taken against those found responsible”.

The confiscated bottles will be sent to a lab for testing, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Omar Shahid.

SSP Shahid also said, “If a facility is declared a sub-jail then its responsibility lies with the police, however, an inquiry will also be conducted against the hospital’s administration.”

TWO HELD:

Two people, including Memon’s driver, were subsequently taken into custody in connection with the presence of liquor at the hospital.

Jan Mohammad, who was one of the two men taken into custody, told reporters while being taken away that the bottles spotted by the CJP did not contain liquor.

“One of the bottles had honey while the other contained cooking oil,” he claimed.

An FIR [First Information Report] has been registered against Memon and two others in Karachi’s Boat Basin Police Station under the anti-narcotics act.

After visiting Ziauddin hospital, Chief Justice Nisar visited Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) where Hussain Lawai and Anwar Majeed, accused in the Rs 35 billion money laundering case, are admitted. He observed various items in Majeed’s room and confiscated a few records.

Majeed was put on trial over the case of more than 20 ‘benami’ accounts at some private banks that were opened in 2013, 2014 and 2015 from where transactions worth billions of rupees were made.

The amount is said to be black money gathered from various kickbacks, commissions and bribes.

Earlier in February, the top judge had taken notice of Memon being shifted to the hospital from jail. He had then been on judicial remand after being arrested in the Rs5.76 billion corruption case in November 2017, along with 11 others.

Earlier on Friday, the Supreme Court (SC) Karachi Registry had rejected Memon’s bail plea in an anti-corruption reference filed at the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

During the hearing, the had court asked the whereabouts of Memon from the prosecutor on which it was informed that he is going through treatment in a hospital from May, which has been declared as a sub-jail.

NAB prosecutor had informed the court that according to the report of a private hospital, Sharjeel is not suffering from any serious disease, however, was suggested to go for physiotherapy.

The court had rejected PPP leader Sharjeel Memon’s plea after hearing the arguments.

Memon, who returned to Pakistan in March last year after ending his near two-year-long self-imposed exile, was arrested on his arrival by NAB in a Rs5.6 billion graft case. He later obtained bail.

The others accused in the case include bureaucrats, officials of the information department and members of private advertising agencies. The PPP stalwart claims the charges against him are politically motivated.