ISLAMABAD – A court in the federal capital on Wednesday granted bail to a journalist arrested for allegedly leaking tax records of former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and his family members.
Special Judge Central Azam Khan ordered the release of Shahid Aslam and directed him to submit surety bonds worth Rs50,000.
The investigative journalist filed the bail petition after he was sent on judicial remand in the custody of the Federal Investigation (FIA) by court after completion of his two-day physical remand in the case.
Last week, the FIA officials arrested Aslam, who worked for top media outlets including BBC, from Lahore for allegedly providing tax record data to Ahmad Noorani, who shared the tax records and assets details in his exclusive story.
The journalist community denounced the arrest of Shahid Aslam by FIA and mentioned that the latter never shared any details about the tax returns of the former top general.
The recent development comes as FIA already held three officials of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in the tax record breach case.
Earlier, the country’s Finance chief Ishaq Dar directed to start probe after records from FBR were leaked, prompting a strong response from Pakistan Army.
Army’s media wing said misleading data regarding the assets of General Bajwa and his family were shared on social media, and the same assumption-based data was presented in an exaggerated manner on different platforms.
Pakistan Army rejects misleading tax return propaganda against outgoing Army Chief Gen Bajwa
Noorani, in his report, revealed business ventures and claimed that the total worth of Bajwa’s known assets runs more than Rs12 billion.
