KARACHI, Dec 1: A judicial magistrate on Wednesday extended the remand of the chairman of National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) in a land scam case till Dec 6.

The NICL chairman, Ayaz Khan Niazi, who surrendered himself on Nov 23, along with others has been formally arrested for allegedly violating the rules in the procurement of land on exorbitant rates, which caused a huge financial loss to the exchequer.The suspect, who had been remanded in the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency since Nov 23, was produced before a judicial magistrate (east) on Wednesday and the FIA sought an extension in his remand.

The court remanded the suspect in the FIA custody for another five days and directed the investigation officer to produce him in court on the next date.

According to the prosecution, the FIA received a written complaint from Zafar Mehmood, the commerce secretary, on Nov 16, 2010 in which he requested to carry out a probe in connection with all purchases of land at various places and on different times by the NICL and further requested to register a separate case regarding the prima facie embezzlement of the NICL funds in the transaction of 10-acre land purchased in Aug 2009 in the Korangi area against the amount of Rs90 million per acre, which allegedly caused huge losses to the exchequer.

The chairman, the board of directors, the investment committee of the NICL, the sellers, the valuators and others in connivance with each other committed offences of criminal breach of trust, misconduct, forgery and cheating, it added.

A case (FIR 21/10) was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonesty inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequences and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947 at the FIA Commercial Bank Circle, Karachi.

Suspected militants remanded

A judicial magistrate (Malir) on Wednesday remanded four suspected militants in the custody of the CID police till Dec 4 in cases relating to the possession of explosives and illicit weapons.

The CID police produced the four suspects — Muhammad Umar alias Sohrab, Barkatullah alias Zanjeer, Amanuddin alias Munnu and Ahsanullah — in court and sought their police remand.

The CID claimed to have arrested the suspects in Sohrab Goth and seized arms, explosives and suicide vests from them. It also claimed that the suspects were associated with the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

The suspects were booked under Sec-tion 13-D of the Pakistan Arms Ordinance, 1965 and Section 4/5 of the Explosive Substance Act.