Hanif Abbasi shifted to Attock jail after Adiala photo leak

RAWALPINDI: Incarcerated Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi was shifted to the Attock jail on Saturday morning after a photo of him with former premier Nawaz Sharif in the Adiala jail surfaced in the national and social media. 

Abbasi, who is serving life sentence awarded to him in the ephedrine quota case, was moved to the Attock jail from Adiala on the directives of the Rawalpindi Region prisons deputy inspector general of police (DIG).

In the photo, which went viral on social media, Hanif Abbasi can be seen with Nawaz Sharif in jail superintendent’s room hours after the Islamabad High Court suspended the jail sentence of the former PM, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (redd) Safdar.

The PML-N leader was shifted on the recommendation of a two-member committee formed to probe the photo leak episode.

The committee, comprising AIG Safdar Nawaz and DIG Feroz Shaukat, was tasked to probe who took the picture and how did it make it to social media websites.

On Wednesday, the Islamabad High Court suspended the prison sentences handed down to Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and her spouse Captain Safdar in the Avenfield corruption reference.

In July, the Control of Narcotics Substances (CNS) Court of Rawalpindi handed down life term to Hanif Abbasi in the case related to misuse of controlled chemical ephedrine.

The PML-N leader was accused of misusing 500kg of the controlled chemical ephedrine, obtaining it in 2010 and selling it to narcotics smugglers.