November 9, 2005	Wednesday	Shawwal 6, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 8: District and Sessions Judge, Islamabad, Mirza Rafiuzaman on Tuesday issued orders for freezing all bank accounts of Margalla Towers builder Ramzan Khokhar as well as those of his wife, his firm, CCC Associates, and the structural and architectural engineers of the building, a senior official of capital police told Dawn.

The court issued these orders so that those responsible for the poor construction and use of substandard material could be taken to task. The faulty construction resulted in the collapse of a building block during the October 8 earthquake, killing 73 occupants, the official said.

The court also directed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to freeze all bank accounts of the accused anywhere in the country and provide statements of the accounts to the capital police.

Following the collapse of the building, the residents of Margalla Towers had registered an FIR with Shalimar police station against the builder/owner Ramzan Khokhar, his firm CCC Associates, structural engineer Dr Hafeez Sheikh and architectural engineer Azhar Mehmood Qureshi. All the accused are stated to be in the UK.

The court was informed that the police had detected 16 bank accounts of Ramzan Khokhar, his wife and firm, and four accounts of structural engineer Hafeez Sheikh in Islamabad.

The police official said the banks accounts of the accused were detected with the help of important documents recovered from the office of CCC Associates in Ginza Centre, Blue Area, which was sealed by the police.

However, he said the exact amount in the bank accounts could not be ascertained. “But it must be in millions,” the official added.

The police are hoping finding some other accounts of the accused both in the country as well as offshore banks.

In this connection the court directed heads of all banks in the country to detect the accounts of the accused.

The court also directed the police to confiscate property of the accused not only in Islamabad but anywhere in Pakistan. It has been learnt that the builder of Margalla Towers, Ramzan Khokhar, and his wife were already in London when the towers caved in while the other two accused, Dr Hafeez Sheikh and Azhar Mehmood Qureshi, were in Islamabad and sensing the gravity of the situation, they escaped.

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