LAHORE -- The FIA, that believed that visa con Asim Malik flown abroad, has landed in hot water as the Lahore High Court asked the agency to produce on next the hearing or be ready to go jail, an FIA officer said on Tuesday.

Asim Malik, owner of a visa firm, has committed fraud in the name of sending innocent people abroad and was at large since long after the FIA had registered more than 66 FIRs against him on Lahore High Court (LHC) order.

An FIA investigator said that earlier Asim had got relief from Islamabad High Court wherein court had asked FIA not to register case against him but now when LHC had directed FIA not only to register cases against him but to produce him before court at any cost Asim and his wife has gone underground.

Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi of Lahore High Court on Wednesday directed the FIA to arrest alleged swindler Asim Malik, the chief executive of the company, within 10 days otherwise its director would be the first person to be sent behind bars. The judge made the remarks while hearing more than 105 petitions filed by the affectees. The petitioners had alleged that they had given money to the company's chief executive officer for sending them abroad but they were defrauded.

Justice Naqvi had issued arrest warrants for not appearing before the court and also ordered authorities to put the name of the accused Asim in ECL. The investigators said that earlier the accused was given shelter by an influential person of Islamabad and now he had flown abroad sources in FIA believe.

He said that now FIRs were also registered against his wife Zobia Rubab Malik and she had also left the country. To a question that when name of Asim was on Exit Control List (ECL) how he managed escape abroad, he said that Asim was an influential man and he possessed more than one passport so he could escape.

Talking about the influence of Asim an FIA officer said that accused got an FIA officer transferred who conducted raid in Islamabad to arrest Asim adding that an additional director of FIA who was heading the inquiry team in his cases helped him. Now on direction of Lahore High Court, Director FIA has constituted a new inquiry team headed by Director FIA, Punjab himself, and among its members included Additional Directors Azhar Mehmood and Malik Javed, Deputy Director, Basharat Shehzad and Assistant Director Khuram Saeed.