ISLAMABAD    -   The Senate Standing Committee on In­terior Thursday constituted a sub-com­mittee to probe the matter of joint raid allegedly conducted by the Federal In­vestigation Agency (FIA) and Islam­abad police at the house of PTI Senator Saifullah Khan Nyazee.

The committee that met under the chairmanship of Senator Mohsin Aziz formed a sub-committee under the convenorship of Senator Kamil Ali Agha and Senators Faisal Saleem Rah­man and Rana Maqbool Ahmad as its members. The committee held its ses­sion at Parliament House, which was also attended by Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar and State Minister for Law Shahadat Awan while senators including Dr Shahzad Waseem, Azam Khan Swati, Shibli Faraz showed up as special invitees.

Leader of the Opposition in the Sen­ate Dr Shahzad Waseem proposed the constitution of the sub-committee that was seconded by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan.

On September 13, FIA had raided the house of opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Nyazee and had confiscated some digital equipment on charges of misuse of funds being collected through website namanzo­or.com. The lawmaker has denied the charge saying that it has nothing to do with the website.

The sub-committee will probe the matter keeping in view the term of references (ToRs) as compiled by the chairman committee:

The sub-committee will probe whether permission was taken from the Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani before the raid was con­ducted, and also if the police and FIA authorities had the search warrant at the time of the raid.

At the outset, the chairman com­mittee and members belonging to opposition benches were irked due to the non-presence of FIA official Imran Haider who reportedly got is­sued a search warrant for carrying out the raid. 

They were of the view that Haider is the relevant official to be questioned rather than listening to the rest of the high officials.

FIA Director General Mohsin Hasan Butt, while briefing the committee as­sured that no one would be victim­ised at any cost. I had granted the per­mission to seize the equipment during the search operation at the lawmak­er’s house, he added. He stressed that it was not a raid but a search operation being carried out after getting a search warrant.

He reiterated that policewomen were also present during the search but Sen­ator Nyazee and Senator Fawzia Ar­shad denied this very statement of DG, saying that no policewomen were pres­ent during the raid.