MANSEHRA: Retired captain Mohammad Safdar, who was convicted in the Avenfield properties reference by an accountability court in Islamabad on Friday, has gone underground and is set to obtain pre-arrest bail from the Lahore High Court.

Profile: Capt Safdar, from military man to first 'son-in-law'

“I cannot confirm whereabouts of Mr Safdar, whose cellular number is switched off but he is likely to surrender to the National Account­ability Bureau (NAB) or avail himself of pre-arrest bail from the court in Lahore on Monday,” Zafar Mehmood, the PML-N president in Mansehra district and a close aide to Mr Sharif’s son-in-law, told reporters on Saturday.

He said speculative stories about his younger brothers’ arrest by a NAB team were being aired by electronic media. “Mr Safdar has probably gone underground while travelling from Tanawal to Mansehra,” Mr Mehmood said. According to other sources in PML-N, Mr Safdar went underground to escape arrest by NAB or Hazara police.

The deputy inspector general of police in Hazara, Mohammad Alam Shinwari, told reporters that Mr Safdar was not arrested anywhere in Hazara. “Until we receive the arrest warrants for Mr Safdar, how can we arrest him?” he asked.

Mohammad Sajjad — the elder brother of Mr Safdar who is in the run for NA-14 as an independent candidate — told reporters that he had started his election campaign in the constituency as he did not want to give rival parties a walkover.

“My brother is in consultation with his lawyers to get a stay order against the verdict pronounced by the NAB court, and if he gets justice he will contest the elections from this constituency,” he said.

In a late evening development, sources said that NAB had sought help of the KP police chief for arrest of Mr Safdar but the district administration was yet to receive his arrest warrants.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2018