The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday announced a public auction of six Bahria Town properties in Rawalpindi and Islamabad on June 12.
The development adds on to NAB’s previous actions against property tycoon Malik Riaz, who owns Bahria Town and is an absconder in the £190 million Al Qadir Trust Case.
In a notification today, NAB listed six properties of the project owned by tycoon Malik Riaz, including five in Rawalpindi and one in Islamabad.
The properties were being auctioned to recover the defaulted amount of a plea bargain under Section 33E of the NAB Ordinance 1999, it added.
NAB media director Birj Lal Dosani confirmed the details to Dawn.com, stating that the amount was being recovered in connection with corruption charges under a plea bargain.
Earlier this year, the watchdog warned the public against investing in Bahria Town’s Dubai project and began extradition efforts for Riaz and his son.
In February, NAB [filed] a reference against Riaz, ex-Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Minister Sharjeel Memon, and others for land transfer to Bahria Town. The watchdog also filed two corruption references for unlawfully acquiring 4,500 kanals of state land in Rawalpindi’s New Murree for Bahria Golf City and Takht Pari forest area.
In March, NAB said it had sealed “numerous” commercial and residential properties of Bahria Town in Karachi, Lahore, Takht Pari, New Murree/Golf City, and Islamabad over corruption cases filed against Riaz. It had also frozen hundreds of bank accounts and vehicles of Bahria Town.
Separately, a Rawalpindi Accountability court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Riaz and his son, Ali Ahmed Malik, in the Takht Pari reference.
NAB has multiple times warned the public to “avoid any attractive inducements from Bahria Town and to protect their hard-earned savings”.
According to senior counsel Khawaja Haris, a plea bargain agreement was considered successful if an accused confesses to a crime and then agrees to return the money in return for “a lighter punishment”.
From 2000 to 2022, the accountability watchdog recovered Rs65 billion through plea bargain out of a total of Rs91.55bn, a NAB official told the Supreme Court in 2022.
