NAB granted two-day transit remand of PPP lawmaker Khursheed Shah
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An accountability court in Islamabad granted the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) two-day transit remand of PPP leader and lawmaker Syed Khursheed Shah, a day after he was arrested in a case regarding assets beyond his known sources of income.
A NAB team presented the former leader of the opposition before accountability judge Muhammad Bashir and requested a week-long transit remand of Shah to transfer him to Sukkur.
"Does it take that long to reach Sukkur?" judge Bashir asked NAB prosecutor Sohail Arif.
He also asked Shah how long it would take to reach Sukkur, in response to which the MNA said that by plane it takes two hours.
Arif said that there was only a morning flight and no other today.
The judge granted the accountability bureau two-day transit remand of the PPP leader.
Shah was arrested on Wednesday at his residence in Islamabad in a joint operation conducted by NAB’s Sukkur and Rawalpindi teams.
The leader is accused of getting an amenity plot in a housing society. The anti-graft watchdog claimed that he also had some benami properties in the names of his frontmen or servants. According to NAB, an inquiry against Shah revealed his involvement in the commission of offences as defined under Section 9(a) and Schedule of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.
According to NAB, Shah was summoned by Sukkur NAB office on Wednesday in the cases but he had informed the bureau in writing that he could not appear due to some engagements in Islamabad. It also said the lawmaker being a public office-holder got transferred an amenity plot at Professors’ Cooperative Housing Society, Sukkur, in the name of his family to build a house and the money spent on its construction did not commensurate with his known sources of income and those of his dependents.
Shah joins a long list of opposition leaders — including former president and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, former finance minister Miftah Ismail, Maryam Nawaz, incumbent leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shahbaz — who are currently facing graft allegations.
