LAHORE, Nov 13: FIA personnel arrested on Saturday Rao Shakeel Ahmad, a former director-general of Haj operations, for his alleged involvement in a scam over accommodation for pilgrims in Makkah.

The FIA also arrested Trading Corporation of Pakistan’s former chairman Abdul Malik and sitting director Adil Mukhtar in a scandal involving import of substandard eatables.

According to sources, Rao Shakeel was arrested in Lahore, but a senior FIA official refused to confirm the place of arrest. “I can only confirm that he has been arrested,” FIA’s director for Punjab Zafar Qureshi told Dawn.

“Yesterday, the FIA headquarters in Islamabad registered a case against him and the DG asked me to arrest him,” Mr Qureshi said.

He said that Mr Shakeel was serving as DG (Haj operations) when the scam came into limelight. He said the government after having information about the scam suspended him from service.

Mr Shakeel is a prime suspect in the scam in which accommodation for pilgrims was arranged at inflated rates and at distant locations from the Kaaba.

Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia reportedly accused the federal ministry of religious affairs of wrongdoing in a letter he purportedly sent to the Supreme Court a few weeks.The SC took a suo motu notice and directed the ministry to furnish a reply in this connection.—Khalid Hasnain