GUJRAT: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) booked the son of a local PML-N leader, his two former employees and two officials of the revenue department on charges of committing fraud through the sale and purchase of some land in and around a private housing colony that was declared illegal.

The private colony located along Gujrat-Jalalpur Jattan road near Moinuddinpur had been established by PML-N leader from NA-69, Haji Aurangzaib Butt, and his son. The district administration had sealed the colony last year and declared it illegal.

The local ACE circle lodged a case against Mr Butt’s son, Zeeshan Zaib, his former employees, Asif Shafi and Rizwan Chaudhry, and patwaris Maqbool Ahmed and Sajjad Aslam for issuing property ownership documents (fard) of a piece of land inside the colony that had been banned by the land revenue department and the municipality.

The case was registered on a report sent by Deputy Commissioner (DC) Saif Anwar to the ACE under sections 420, 468, 471 and 166 of PPC and 5/5/47 of PCA. However, an ACE team was conducting raids to arrest the suspects.

Aurangzaib Butt alleges ‘political victimisation’, says no transaction took place

In a statement issued here, Mr Butt called the registration of the case against the management of his housing society political victimisation and said that despite following all the procedures for conducting the business, the local administration was targeting him and registered the case even though no transaction or transfer of land had taken place.

He alleged that the authorities had been targeting his businesses since his announcement to contest the next general elections from NA-69 from the platform of the PML-N. He stressed that it was unjustified, but he was ready to face all the actions and would not compromise.

Official sources said the DC had referred the case to the ACE after additional deputy commissioner revenue held an initial probe into the matter and listened to all the parties concerned.

They added that Mr Butt had attempted to get back the ownership of the land he had registered under the names of his former employees, and had got documents prepared to transfer it in the name of his son. But the sub-registrar blocked the bid after determining that the specific piece of land was located in and around Mr Butt’s housing society.

The local administration is reportedly working on similar cases involving local politicians, mainly from the opposition parties, and more such cases could be lodged in the near future.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2020