LAHORE: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has registered FIRs against 50 politicians, mostly from the opposition, on land grabbing and other charges during the last one month or so in the province.

According to the ACE, among the suspects were those who had constructed eight illegal housing societies, five filling stations, five illegal protein farms, one illegal wagon stand, one illegal commercial market and one illegal marriage hall, thus causing a loss of Rs3,424 million to the national exchequer.

Prominent among those booked by the ACE are PML-N’s Ghulam Dastagir, Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjah, Saiful Malook Khokhar, Javed Latif and Ashraf Butt, former federal ministers Khwaja Asif and Danial Aziz, former MNAs Javed Hashmi and Waseem Akhtar and former MPAs Muhammad Ikram, Rizwan Gill, Amjad Ali Javed, Ehsanul Haq Bajwa, Chaudhry Sarfraz Afzal and Meer Badshah Qaiserani. Almost all of them are on pre-arrest bail.

The ACE said Danial Aziz had been booked for illegal occupation of the state land measuring 2,400 kanal at Chak 170/172 district Sargodha. Ghulam Dastagir is accused of illegally constructing a petrol pump/CNG/ service station on land measuring two kanal and 11 marla in Gujranwala, and also owned one kanal land which he got illegally.

Saiful Malook Khokhar who is said to be one of the major financiers of the PML-N, is accused of getting registered surrender deed pertaining to land measuring 226 kanal in Lahore.

ACE has taken action against veteran politician Javed Hashmi for allegedly occupying 60 acres of agricultural land between 1985 and 2012 in Multan.

MNA from Sheikhupura Javed Latif, who is facing criticism from the party colleagues for saying that some leaders are playing on the both sides of the wicket, is accused of running an illegal wagon stand in his area.

The PML-N has accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of unleashing the ACE and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the opposition leaders after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to implicate them in fake cases.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2020