ISLAMABAD - The federal government on Wednesday unceremoniously removed Director General (DG) Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Wajid Zia after he developed differences with some senior functionaries of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, informed sources told The Nation.
With his removal, the government made a major reshuffle at the top level of the police bureaucracy by appointing Sanaullah Abbasi as the new head of FIA and Moazzam Jah Ansari as the new police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
According to four separate notifications issued by the Establishment Division; Abbasi, a basic pay scale 22 officer of Police Service of Pakistan who was presently serving as Inspector General of Police (IGP) KP has been posted as new DG FIA, under the Interior Division in terms of Section 3 (2) of the FIA Act, 1974 with immediate effect. His predecessor Zia, a BS-22 officer of Police Service has been transferred and posted as Director General National Police Bureau (NPB) under the Interior Division.
Ansari made new KP police chief
Ansari, a BS-21 officer of police Service was presently serving as Commandant Frontier Constabulary (FC). As his replacement, the government appointed Salah-ud-Din Khan, a BS-21 officer of Police Service, currently under transfer from the post of IGP Azad Jammu & Kashmir, as Commandant FC in terms of Section 5 (1) of the North West Frontier Constabulary (NWFC) Act, 1915.
According to official sources, outgoing DG FIA was not on good terms with some top government functionaries including a close aide to Prime Minister Imran Khan and a senior bureaucrat overseeing the security and anti-corruption matters of the agency. The government functionaries believed that Zia was not handling some of the on-going investigations on corruption in a suitable manner.
Zia, was once a trustworthy officer of the PTI government and PM Imran Khan had appointed him on the position in November 2019 after unceremoniously removing his predecessor Bashir Ahmed Memon.
Zia shot to fame within the ranks of ruling PTI after he as head of Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigated the Panama scandal that led to the disqualification of the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in July 2017 by the Supreme Court.
Zia is set to retire on March 27 next year on attaining the age of superannuation and Establishment Division had also issued the notification of his retirement last month.
A close aide to PM told The Nation wishing anonymity termed the removal of Zia as “routine transfer posting” and said that the government wanted to fill the position of DG National Police Bureau with a professional officer. He ignored that the post of DG of the Bureau is considered a powerless position in the police service.
The aide further said that Prime Minister himself had interviewed and selected the outgoing IG KP Abbasi for the slot of DG FIA.
He stressed that that there was no conspiracy behind the change of DG FIA.
FIA is currently investigating several important cases of corruption including sugar scandal allegedly involving estranged PTI leader Jahangir Khan Tareen and money laundering case against Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and PML-N leader Shehbaz Sharif.
In the past, former DG FIA Memon had accused PM Imran Khan of pressurising him to prosecute main Opposition leaders on charges of corruption and alleged that he was removed due to this reason.