ISLAMABAD - China has lodged a protest with Pakistan over Chinese nationals marrying Pakistanis in Pakistan.

Chinese high-ups have shared this concern with Pakistani officials, Ministry of Interior Tuesday informed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior.

Additional Secretary Ministry of Interior Dr Tariq Sardar informed the NA panel that China has shared serious concerns with Pakistan over some Chinese nationals coming to Pakistan on visit visas and marrying Pakistanis. The committee met in the chair of member National Assembly (MNA) Raja Khurram Nawaz.

Responding to a question of PTI MNA Nafeesa Khattak, the additional secretary said that some private marriage bureaus were involved in these marriages. “We are receiving most of complaints from two cities Lahore and Abbottabad,” he said.

However, the officer could not answer the question of Khattak that some Pakistani men had married Uighur women in China and their wives had vanished there and their whereabouts are not known to them.

Anti-money laundering regime:

The committee showed apprehensions over the slow progress of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) while investigating money laundering cases as well as low number of convictions in these cases. The committee was surprised that the court had decided against the accused only in a single case of money laundering prosecuted by FIA.

Giving a briefing to the committee, FIA Additional Director General Basharat Mehmood Shehzad informed said that this low progress was due to many lacunas in the Anti-money Laundering (AML) Act 2010 and the agency had proposed amendments in it.

He said that first major reason was AML Act was a non-cognizable offence. “Any offence that suggests more than three year imprisonment is cognizable,” he said. The second cause is that FIA had no access to government records as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) authorized under the law, he added.

Shehzad said that FIA has to get permission from the district and session judge concerned to get record from any government department and it took a long time to investigate such cases. “Banks don’t directly provide us record in money laundering cases,” he said adding that sometimes the session judge didn’t grant permission to access the records in the end.

Benami and fake accounts:

In his briefing to the committee on benami and fake accounts, Shehzad said fake and benami were two different things. A fake account is opened in the name of a person who has died. In benami accounts, the account holders’ transactions do not match their known sources of income, he said. “The rich used to open such accounts in the name of their cooks and domestic servants.”

FIA official said that no benami or fake account could be opened without the connivance of bank staff and at least two bankers were involved in it.  Pointing out cases where accounts were opened in the name of unaware ‘chai walas’ (tea sellers) and ‘falooda walas’ (ice-cream sellers), he said that presidents of banks have been found involved in opening of such accounts. He said that involved of bank staff at low level was due to the targets given by their management to bring more deposits into the banks.

He said that Financial Management Unit (FMU) has reported 500 suspicious transactions to FIA in previous five years. Any suspicious transaction forwarded to us by FMU is properly investigated, he added.

Illegal deportees:

The FIA officer said that most of the Pakistanis deported from abroad used to get legal visas of Iran and UAE and then try to reach their destinations through fake travelling documents.

Extradition through Interpol:

Responding a question of PML-N MNA Pervez Malik that why Interpol refused the extradition request of FIA for Hussain Nawaz, the son of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Additional DG FIA said that he had no knowledge about the specific case. However, he said that for extradition, first a treaty between both the countries should exist. And then Interpol sees that the person under question should not be discriminated with on linguistic or other basis. Finally, the evidence shared with it should be at par with the standards of legal system of that country from where the accused has to be extradited, he said.

Committee shows dissatisfaction:

The majority of members including PML-N MNA Marriyum Aurangzeb expressed their dissatisfaction with the FIA briefing. On the basis of briefing, the committee could not examine the performance of the FIA over the past five years. She said that the agency should submit a detailed a list of all those who are being investigated since the time the FIA was established.

“Had FIA performed its duties well, there wouldn’t be a need for NAB,” she said. She said that Interpol rejected the request of FIA for extradition of Hassan and Hussain Nawaz, the son of former PM Sharif, because the evidence in the case was too weak. Both are wanted by NAB in an accountability reference.

The committee sought report from FIA on its investigations conducted against illegalities committed by housing societies.