Registrar SHC requests Interior Ministry to place Dr Asim on ECL

KARACHI: The registrar of the Sindh High Court (SHC) has requested the Ministry of Interior for inclusion of Dr Asim Hussain's name in the Exit Control List, hours after he was released from prison on Friday after 19-month detention.

Hussain, a close aide of former president and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, faces several charges including corruption references filed by NAB of Rs 479 billion. He is also alleged to have provided treatment and protection to terrorists at a hospital owned by him.

The former petroleum minister was released on the orders of the SHC after he furnished his passports that were being held by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in connection with another case registered against him.

However, the SHC registrar on Friday evening wrote a letter to the Ministry of Interior, requesting it to place Hussain on the ECL.

After the court ordered his release, Hussain was shifted from the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Complex to the Ziauddin Hospital in a police armoured personnel carrier (APC).

Congratulating Dr Asim on his release, Pakistan People's Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that Dr Asim went through mental and physical difficulties during the last 19 months.

"The federal government’s vengeful acts cannot intimidate us," he said.

Charges against former petroleum minister

According to NAB, Hussain created an artificial shortage of gas during his tenure as a result urea fertiliser prices skyrocketed and touched Rs1830 from just Rs850.

Due to this, the government provided a subsidy on urea import which caused Rs450 billion loss to the national exchequer from 2012 to 2013.

Dr Asim Hussain also acquired land illegally for the establishment of Ziauddin Hospital, according to the NAB document present in court in May last year.

In a video clip in June 2016, he levelled serious allegations against PPP’s Owais Muzaffar alias Tappi, accusing him of being involved in corruption. However, he maintains he was tortured to extract a confessional statement.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman and former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari had fiercely defended his close aide.

In an interview with a private TV channel, Zardari had said Dr Asim was his childhood friend and family doctor and incapable of committing corruption and providing medical help to terrorists.

Dismissing allegations of corruption against Dr Asim Hussain, he said the former served as a state minister and likened him to an ‘innocent rabbit’, who is afraid of his own shadow. The PPP leader, like in the past, had vowed to defend his friend on all platforms.

He also visited Hussain in January this year at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases to inquire about his health.