ISLAMABAD / KARACHI: The accountability court of Islamabad on Saturday handed over the custody of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Faryal Talpur to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on nine-day physical remand.

Accountability judge Mohammad Arshad Malik directed the NAB prosecution to produce her in court after the expiry of the remand on June 24.

NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Khan Abbasi told the court that the bureau’s chairman had issued Ms Talpur’s arrest warrant on June 13. He said that her residence in Sector F-8, Islamabad, where she had been detained, had been declared a sub-jail and two women constables had been deployed there.

Mr Khan said that Ms Talpur was the key accused in the fake bank accounts case and NAB required her custody to investigate different fake accounts which were being used for transaction of billions of rupees.

The prosecution requested for Ms Talpur’s 14-day physical remand, but the judge granted nine-day remand only.

Three more arrests made in fake accounts, money laundering case

Later, talking to media persons, Ms Talpur said that she was a political worker and had faced “political cases” in the past as well.

She said that her father, brother and husband all had faced imprisonment and that was not something new for her.

Ms Talpur said that contrary to NAB’s claim of her involvement in multi-billion rupee transactions, she was accused of receiving Rs15 million only and that amount was the payment of the sugarcane they had supplied to sugar mills.

Arrests in Karachi

In Karachi, the administrative judge of the accountability courts granted four-day transitory remand of three businessmen who have been arrested by NAB in connection with the fake accounts and money laundering case.

The NAB investigation officer produced Khawaja Mustafa Zulqarnain Majeed, a son of Anwar Majeed, detained chairman of the Omni Group of Companies, his close relative Khawaja M. Salman Younis and Waheed Ahmed Malik before the judge and told him that they had been arrested in Karachi on Friday night. The official produced copies of their arrest warrants and authorisation of the inquiry against them.

He said that the suspects had been taken into custody in connection with an inquiry being carried out by a joint investigation team of NAB, thus their custody was required so that they could be shifted to Islamabad. The court was requested to grant their transitory remand for their production before the accountability court in Islamabad.

Allowing the request, Judge Fareed Anwar Qazi granted NAB transitory remand of the detained businessmen till June 18 with the directive to produce them before the relevant court on or before the next date of hearing.

Earlier this week, former president and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari was arrested by NAB in connection with the inquiry into the fake bank accounts and money laundering scam.

Mr Zardari’s close aide and business partner Anwar Majeed, his son Ghani Majeed, Hussain Lawai, former chairman of the Pakistan Stock Exchange, and Taha Raza, a banker, have already been arrested in connection with about 16 cases of fake accounts and money laundering being investigated by a joint investigation team of NAB.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2019