Shujaat makes another bid to woo back Elahi
LAHORE: PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain once again met PTI President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in the camp jail on Sunday to convince him to join his previous party.
While PML-Q leaders suggest that Mr Elahi seemed convinced to return to PML-Q, his son Moonis Elahi was adamant about not to join the party again.
Mr Hussain, who was accompanied by his son Chaudhry Salik Hussain and brother Chaudhry Wajahat, inquired after Mr Elahi’s health and expressed good wishes.
While both leaders discussed the political situation in the country, Chaudhry Shujaat stressed that Mr Elahi should convince his son and other family members to abandon PTI and join PML-Q.
Mr Elahi, who is in judicial custody, said he had already faced all the hardships and now Mr Moonis would decide the family’s political future.
When contacted, a member of the Elahi camp told Dawn that “misinformation” was being spread by the PML-Q, though both Mr Elahi and Mr Moonis considered PML-Q a “dead horse”.
Meanwhile, a medical board visited the camp jail and examined Mr Elahi.
After a previous meeting with Mr Elahi in jail last month, Chaudhry Shujaat said Mr Elahi was not well and his feet were swollen. Soon afterwards the Punjab govt had offered Mr Elahi better class in the jail.
Mr Elahi was picked up on corruption charges. He was first arrested on June 1 from outside his Lahore residence by the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) for allegedly taking kickbacks in development projects.
The next day, he was discharged by a Lahore court but was rearrested by the ACE in a similar case registered in its Gujranwala region, where a court discharged him on June 3 in two corruption cases. The ACE yet again arrested Mr Elahi for making “illegal recruitments” in the Punjab Assembly.
On June 9, a special anti-corruption court gave the ACE a last chance to present the record of the illegal appointments case.
The same day, the National Accountability Bureau came into action and opened another inquiry against Mr Elahi for allegedly embezzling funds in development projects in Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin.
After a sessions court set aside on June 12 a judicial magistrate’s decision of Mr Elahi’s acquittal in the embezzlement case, the next day, a magistrate again sent him to judicial lockup.
On June 20, Mr Elahi finally secured relief from an anti-corruption court in Lahore but could not be released from jail as orders for his release were not delivered to the prison administration.
The same day, the Federal Investigation Agency booked him, his son Moonis Elahi and three others on charges of money laundering.
The next day, the FIA took him into custody from jail and he was sent to jail on a 14-day judicial remand in the money laundering case.
Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2023