ISLAMABAD: Between 2010 and 2012, the Haj corruption scandal rocked the national political scene and led to the departure of both Hamid Saeed Kazmi and Azam Swati from the federal cabinet.
The former also spent nearly two years in prison over charges of irregularities in the 2009 Haj operation.
But the much hyped matter is rarely mentioned anymore and its proceedings have become very routine, like most other court cases.
When it first erupted, the case caused quite a storm, souring ties between the PPP and JUI-F. The sudden removal of Azam Swati from the cabinet annoyed Maulana Fazalur Rehman, who expressed his displeasure publicly.
The scandal surfaced in 2010 after Swati, then-minister for science and technology, accused the religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi of corruption. The Supreme Court then took suo moto notice and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was assigned to probe the allegations.
According to the charge sheet issued to Kazmi, DG Haj Rao Shakeel and Raja Aftabul Islam, a former joint secretary ministry of religious affairs, the men were indicted for fraud, cheating, misuse of authority, and causing losses to the national exchequer and the public at large.
They were charged under sections 109, 409, 420, 468, 471 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and 5(2) 1947 of Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).
Specifically, they were accused of hiring a substandard building on exorbitant rent (for housing the pilgrims in Mecca) and receiving kickbacks in the process.
Prosecutors blame weak evidence; Kazmi continues to maintain his innocence
The scandal even threatened to taint then-prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani as FIA implicated his son Abdul Qadir, who was also an MNA, in the Haj corruption case. The FIA alleged, based on testimony by former PML-N lawmaker Syed Imran Ahmed Shah that Abdul Qadir had received a luxury bullet-proof Land Cruiser from Rao Shakeel Ahmed.
However, a year and a half later, in 2012, the PML-N man backtracked and Gilani was acquitted.
Originally, the MNA had alleged that Zain Iftikhar Sukhera, a close friend of Abdul Qadir, went to Saudi Arabia on Jul 18, 2010 and met Rao Shakeel to receive the vehicle.
The vehicle was “reportedly smuggled through the Karachi port and was secretly offloaded from a truck at Sahiwal”.
In return, Mr Sukhera was awarded toll plaza and road construction contracts by the National Highways Authority, Mr Shah had alleged in his statement