LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) informed an accountability court on Saturday that properties owned by the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif’s daughter Rabia and son-in-law Imran Ali Yousaf have been attached because of them being absconders in the Punjab Saaf Pani Company reference.

Senior Special Prosecutor Asadullah Malik submitted a report before the court along with details of the assets attached under Section 88 of CrPC. The assets included shares in M/s Ali & Fatima Developers Pvt Ltd, M/s Ali Processed Food Pvt Ltd, Madina Food Pvt Ltd, Ghausul Azam Developers and multiple floors in Ali Towers and Ali Trade Centre on MM Alam Road, Gulberg, Lahore.

Presiding Judge Sajid Ali adjourned the hearing till Sept 23 and sought arguments on the acquittal applications filed by other suspects in the reference.

NAB says action was taken in Saaf Pani Company case

The other suspects in the reference included former Saaf Pani Company chairman and former PML-N MPA Raja Qamarul Islam, former chief executive officer of the company Waseem Ajmal, Masood Akhtar, Waris Ali, Khalid Nadeem Bokhari, Azharuddin and Saleem Akhtar.

In the reference, the NAB has alleged that Islam, being chairman of the company, committed corruption in the award of contracts of 84 water filtration plants at higher prices. It said the suspect got the contracts of 102 plants approved from the company’s board of directors and forged the documents.

The bureau accused Ajmal of violating procurement rules and permitting installation of the water plants in Dunyapur tehsil beyond the scope of the project.

Both Islam and Ajmal were arrested by the NAB in June 2018 and later released on bail granted by the Lahore High Court on Jan 30, 2019.

Islam claimed the NAB had arrested him a day after he was awarded a PML-N ticket for the 2018 election against former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the disgruntled party leader, from NA-59, Rawalpindi.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2021