ISLAMABAD, Nov 28 (APP): Minister of State for Privatization Muhammad Zubair Umer Monday said Jehangir Tareen while holding portfolio of minister of industries, had committed insider trading and was made to pay Rs 70 million as fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
Addressing a press conference here, he said Jehangir Tareen had bought shares in the names of his cook and gardener and later accepted his crime when he was caught red handed by the SECP.
The sentence for insider trading in the United States, he added, was life imprisonment.
The minister said they have filed applications against PTI leaders Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen in the Supreme Court and Election Commission of Pakistan for their financial misdeeds.
Jehangir Tareen should explain as to how his children bought flats in foreign countries, he added.
The minister said Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen should publicly reply to the questions raised about their financial wrongs.
He said the Sharif family did not change its lawyer but only added senior counsel Akram Sheikh in the legal team.
Their legal team had met all the deadlines set by the Supreme Court for submitting evidences and replies and not a delay of an hour was made in the Panama Papers case, he added.
Zubair said Imran Khan made big claims in his speeches that he had evidences in the Panama Papers case and was not hurly mere allegations. But he persistently continued telling lies till the matter came to the Supreme Court where he had nothing to say, he added.
The whole nation witnessed that PTI’s senior lawyer Hamid Khan was put in an embarrassing situation, he said.
“We have sympathy for him as Hamid Khan could not defend the case and resigned in 24 hours due to media pressure as it was clear he faced a situation which was not defendable.”
Hamid Khan read out three speeches of the Prime Minister as he did not have anything to say and it happened on the first day of start of arguments in the apex court, he recalled.
He said Imran Khan had a 33-year history of financial irregularities.
Imran Khan often quoted from Islamic history but he should also ask his close associate Jehangir Tareen as to why he did not declare his offshore companies in tax declarations, he added.
“Imran Khan himself had offshore company Niazi Services Limited – first in Pakistan. He should have declared the company in the forms of Election Commission and tax declarations but he did not do so.”
The minister said the offshore company of Imran Khan existed from 1983 to 2015 but he did not mention it in his tax returns and before the Election Commission even for a single year.
Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen, he said, had failed to answer questions about their financial wrongs.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Member of the National Assembly Daniyal Aziz said Jehangir Tareen had committed a serious offence of insider trading as the minister of industries in 2000s and bought 341,780 shares in the names of his cook Haji Khan and gardener Allah Yar.
The media, he said, should visit the cities of Lodhran, Multan and Rahim Yar Khan, and bring Haji Khan and Allah Yar before the public and question them about the shares trading made by Jehangir Tareen in their names.
The media should highlight the corruption of Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen, he stressed.
Daniyal said despite the serious financial offenses, Jehangir Tareen wanted to come into the government again.
He alleged that Imran Khan was a cunning man and trying to befool the nation. He should tell about the contradictions in the statements of his and his former wife Jemima Khan regarding his property in Bani Gala.
Both Imran Khan and Jehangir Tareen had not yet filed replies before the Supreme Court in cases about offshore companies, tax evasion, insider trading and party funding, he added.
He criticised Imran Khan for turning Accountability Commission of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into a toothless body and taking away its powers to hide corruption cases of his provincial government.
