Makhdoom Shahabuddin, the first choice of the PPP for the office of the prime minister, was stunned on Thursday when he was informed soon after he had filed his nomination papers and made a speech thanking the party and his supporters for reposing trust in him that a special court had issued warrants for his arrest in the ephedrine case.Similar warrants were also issued for the arrest of Ali Musa Gilani, son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile former prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
, although the names of neither Mr Shahabuddin nor Musa Gilani were included in the incomplete original challan
... list of charges ...
submitted by the Anti-Narcotics Force.
The ANF moved before Special Judge (Narcotics) Shafqatullah Khan an application expressing the possibility of their involvement in the scam on the basis of statements of witnesses recorded by an investigation team over past two months and the judge issued the non-bailable arrest warrants.
The ANF contended that its Sherlocks required their custody to investigate the sale of 9,000kgs of ephedrine to smugglers by two pharmaceutical companies -- Berlex Lab International and Danas Pharmaceutical (Pvt) Ltd.
According to an ANF investigation officer, some witnesses, including former officials of the health ministry who worked under the supervision of then health secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari and Mr Shahabuddin, linked the former health minister and Musa Gilani to the controlled chemical scam.
ANF sources said the application for their arrest had been moved after they did not appear before the investigation team for recording their statement in the case.
According to the ANF challan, Tauqeer Ali Khan, an alleged frontman of Musa Gilani, was intermediary in the scandal.
The scam came to limelight in March 2011, when Makhdoom Shahabuddin while responding to a point of order assured the National Assembly that a thorough investigation would be carried out into the alleged illegal allocation of ephedrine to the two pharmaceutical companies.
The ANF was assigned the task in October last year which started a formal probe on October 10, 2011. According to the ANF investigation, former director general of health Rasheed Juma illegally allowed the allocation. Another former director general of health, Asad Hafeez, and Khushnood Lashari also allowed the allocation and sale of the chemical to the companies.
The challan said Tauqeer Khan was a frequent visitor to the office of the health secretary and was behind all the alleged illegal dealings in ephedrine. The chemical was procured from Alpha Chemicals and delivered to one Zari Mohammad, who was neither a licensed dealer nor worked for any of the pharmaceutical companies.
The challan disclosed that Danas Pharmaceutical had claimed that it produced over 80 million tablets of meton from the ephedrine but could not produce any evidence to prove the claim. The company's claim that it distributed the tablets in Gilgit and Skardu also turned out to be wrong as its chemists in these areas mentioned in the list provided by the company denied having received any tablet from it.
Likewise, Berlex also claimed to have distributed 210 million tablets of meton, but it also failed to prove it.