LAHORE: An official of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has accused its additional director general Zafar Ahmed Qureshi of detaining him for several hours to get a 'desired' statement in the NICL case.

Zulfiqar Ali, an assistant director, in a letter to FIA director general Syed Tehsin Anwar Shah and the interior secretary alleged that Mr Qureshi called him to his office and asked him “to give a statement of his choice otherwise he will spoil my career”.

“Mr Qureshi said I cannot leave his office without giving a statement of his choice against Moonis Elahi and his father former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

“When I refused, Mr Qureshi got angry and illegally detained me for three hours and threatened me that he would arrest me on non-compliance. Subsequently, I submitted to his wish and gave a statement of his choice. He then allowed me to go,” Mr Ali claimed.

Mr Ali said in the letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn, that he had made statement on Sept 6 in the NICL case while remaining statements had been obtained by Mr Qureshi by “inflicting mental torture and hurling threats at me” to achieve goals according to his own whims.

Giving details as to how Mr Qureshi turned against him, Mr Ali said on Jan 25 this year he gave his investigation team (of which he is a part) certain directions to bring strong evidence against Moonis Elahi in the form of statements of the staff of the bank branch concerned.

“I opposed as I was of the view that obtaining false statements under section 161 CrPC from the bank officials will not serve any purpose as it will be difficult to persuade them to stick to their (false) statements in the court against Moonis Elahi,” he said.

Similarly, he said, Mr Qureshi gave the same direction in FIR No 511.

“It is in the above context that Mr Qureshi got annoyed with me,” he said.

Mr Ali said that he was conducting the prosecution of FIRs 24/10 and 29/10 of FIA in the court of special judge central Lahore.

“I am also the member of the investigation team in the National Police Foundation land scam and inquiries against former DG Waseem Ahmed and Lahore Director Inam Ghani,” he said.

“On Aug 9, when I appeared in the court on the direction of the Punjab director, Mr Qureshi threatened me on phone. I apprised him about the facts and said that no accused of NICL scam has obtained any relief from the court. However, Mr Qureshi got published news against me in different newspapers and also wrote to the DG for taking departmental action against me,” he said.