LAHORE   -  A sessions court on Friday granted interim bail till April 10 to two officers of JDW Sugar Mills (owned by Jehangir Tareen)  in a case registered by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under charges of money laundering.

The court directed the officials for submitting two surety bonds of Rs 100,000 each for availing the relief of bail.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Hamid Hussain passed the orders while hearing the pre-arrest bail applications filed by Company Secretary Maqsood Ahmad and Accountant Ghaffran Ahmad.

A counsel on behalf of the accused argued before the court that FIA had launched investigations on charges of money laundering against the JDW sugar Mills and his clients were nominated in one of the FIRs registered by the agency.  He submitted that all allegations against his clients were baseless and pleaded with the court for grant of the bail to them.

At this, the court granted interim bail to both the officers till April 10 and sought a reply from the agency.

Meanwhile, a banking court also granted interim bail to another official of JDW Sugar Mills in the money laundering case till April 7.

The court had asked JDW’s cash collector Amir Waris for submitting two surety bonds of Rs 500,000 for the purpose.

It is pertinent to mention here that the FIA’s Lahore circle had registered two FIRs against Jahangir Tareen, his son Ali Tareen, son-in-law and others under charges of money laundering and fraud in the sugar scam.

The FIRs were registered under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating of public shareholders) and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), read with sections 3/4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.