Karachi: Officials of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday interrogated Dr Asim Hussain, a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, in his office.
Sources said that a team from the NAB along with intelligence officials raided the offices of Hussain, located in the posh area of Clifton.
Hussain served as the petroleum minister during the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in the country from 2008-13. Currently he is serving as the chairman of Sindh Higher Education Commission.
Sources said that more than a dozen plainclothes officials raided Hussain’s office. He was taken away to an undisclosed location suggesting he was detained for further interrogation. However, a spokesman said that he was not arrested or detained.
Hussain was abroad and arrived home only a few days ago.
Khurshid Shah, the opposition leader in the lower house of parliament, said the detention of Hussain was highly condemnable. Shah further said that the government (of PPP in Sindh) was not taken into confidence before the arrest of Hussain.
The opposition leader said that it was a dangerous trend to create a state within a state and the clash of different state organisations would result in a debacle.
He also condemned the similar arrest of Qasim Zia, a PPP leader and former captain of Pakistani hockey team and an Olympian, who was arrested by the NAB in the eastern city of Lahore on charges of corruption.
He was handcuffed to be presented in court. Shah said that it was unfair and against justice.
The NAB, a state-run anti-corruption watchdog, has been conducting raids and arresting corrupt officials and politicians after law enforcement agencies, carrying operations against the terrorists, revealed in one of their reports that the terrorists were being financed through the ill-gotten money by the officials and politicians.
Several senior officials in the land, building control and the fisheries departments were arrested who had alleged connections with the PPP.
Zardari, lashed out at the military establishment and warned of exposing their corruption if he was pushed towards the wall. Consequently, tension brewed between the party and the military establishment. The former president, however, left the country along with his son Bialwal, heir to Zardari.
Bilawal, however, has come back home recently and running the party affairs in the absence of his father.
