ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned Deputy Chairman of the Senate Saleem Mandviwala on Thursday (today) in the fake bank account scam.

On the other hand, Mr Mandviwala claimed to have handed over the record of “custodial deaths” and “suicides caused by NAB” to European Union Ambassador to Pakistan Androulla Kaminara.

According to Mandviwala, he has been summoned by NAB in a case related to “illegal” sale of plots.

It is for the third time that the deputy chairman of the Senate has been summoned by NAB. His last appearance before the bureau was in June last year.

In a statement, Mr Mandviwala said that he met a delegation of the Pak-EU Parliamentary Friendship Group and handed over to Ms Kaminara the details and records of deaths in NAB’s custody and “suicides caused” by the bureau.

He said that he asked the delegation to meet the families of the deceased to get firsthand knowledge about such deaths.

Mr Mandviwala has been accused of being involved in illegal allotment of plots in Overseas Cooperative Housing Society, Karachi, and giving payments for the plots from fake bank accounts.

NAB Rawalpindi has already arrested accused Mohammad Aijaz Haroon, former chairman of the Pakistan International Airlines, in the fake bank accounts scam.

According to NAB, Aijaz Haroon being chairman and secretary of the Overseas Cooperative Housing Society, misused his authority by creating 12 fake plots files in the name of fictitious allottees.

He is also accused of laundering unexplained money of Omni Group in the garb of the 12 fake plots files and receiving illegal gains of about Rs144 million from two fake bank accounts in the name of M/s Lucky Inter­national and M/s A-One international.

NAB had shifted the investigation into the fake bank accounts and money laundering case from its Karachi office to Rawalpindi office last year. The bureau is investigating 172 important personalities, including Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur, former Sindh chief minister Qaim Ali Shah, provincial minister Anwar Siyal and Malik Riaz, in the case.

Their names were placed on the ECL, but the names of Mr Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah were later removed from the no-fly list on the directive of the Supreme Court.

The anti-graft watchdog, which has been investigating the fake bank accounts and money laundering case against the PPP leaders and others, filed eight references in an accountability court on Dec 9, 2018.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2021