ISLAMABAD: The National Account­ability Bureau (NAB), Rawalpindi, relea­sed on Monday details of people from whom recoveries were made in the fake bank accounts case.

Around 172 people, including prominent politicians such as Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, are being investigated by the accountability watchdog in the case.

NAB claims that several of those under investigation have entered into plea bargains with the bureau which has resulted in recoveries of Rs33.246 billion so far.

Director General (Rawalpindi) Irfan Naeem Mangi briefed a meeting, held at the NAB headquarters with its chairman Javed Iqbal in the chair, on the recoveries.

NAB is investigating the case on the basis of an inquiry conducted by a joint investigation team (JIT) formed by the Supreme Court.

The JIT recommended filing of 16 references against the suspects.

According to the Supreme Court’s order of Jan 14, the 172 accused, including Asif Zardari, Faryal Talpur and Malik Riaz, will continue to face travel ban.

According to a NAB spokesman, the meeting was informed that the Rawalpindi bureau had recovered Rs31.906bn through plea bargain (PB) and recovery of state land. Giving details of PB recoveries, he said Rs2.13bn was recovered from Syed Arif Ali and Syed Asif Mahmood; Rs20.352 million from Harish, son of Kalumal; Rs20.206bn from Hammad Shahid, Abdul Ghani, Tariq Baig, Mohammad Iqbal, Mohammad Touseef, Aamir, Siraj Shahid and Ehsaan Elahi; and Rs299.27m from Nadeem Younas, CEO M/s Zafar Enterprises, Abdul Sattar Qureshi, Aslam Pervaiz Memon, former executive engineer, RDD, Baldev, ex-director technical, RDD, Uzair Tahsin, director Wadood Eng Services, Mohammad Jaffar, director Wadood Engineering, Abdul Rasheed Channa and ex-divisional accounts officer Ayaz Ahmed Siddiqui. A sum of Rs50m was recovered from Shahzaib Mahmood, Zulfiqar Ali and Arshad Iqbal; Rs11.884m from Shafqat Mumtaz and Mohammad Abdullah; over Rs9bn from Zain Malik, director of M/s Bahria Town Pvt Ltd; and Rs82.9535m from Tara Chand, Ahmed Mastoi and Ghulam Sarwar.

Mr Mangi said that NAB Rawalpindi had recovered Rs1,005.72m through pardon recoveries in the case.

Those who made pardon recoveries deal are Nadeem Ahmed Khan who had surrendered a plot in street 28, Block-1, Scheme-5, Clifton Karachi in a reference regarding illegal allotment of amenity plots; accused Sajawal Khan through legal heirs Yousaf Eidhi who surrendered illegally allotted 30.03 acres land valuing Rs494.78m in investigation regarding misappropriation of land owned by the government of Sindh and Pakistan Steel Mills by public functionaries of BOR, Manzoor Qadir Kaka and others and Rs10.94m were recovered from accused Amjad Hussain in a case of extending illegal favours to M/s Techno­men Kinetic and others in projects of Sindh Nooriabad Power Company & Sindh transmission and dispatch Company (STDC).

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2021