LAHORE: An accountability court on Friday remanded a former nazim and Formanites Housing Scheme owner Zahoor Wattoo in six-day physical custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for investigation of Rs1.5 billion fraud.

The NAB officials produced the suspect before the court and sought his physical remand for investigation of the case.

The investigating officer told the court that Zahoot Wattoo, also a co-owner of a private news channel, and others deprived public at large of their hard-earned money invested in the housing scheme.

He said the bureau received over 1,000 complaints against the Formanites Housing Scheme for selling non-existent plots. The officer said the custody of the suspect was required to complete investigation of the case and recovery of the looted money.

The court accepted the request and granted six-day physical remand of the suspect. The court directed the NAB to produce the suspect again on Oct 14.

ZAIN MURDER: Three more prosecution witnesses on Friday recorded their statements before an anti-terrorism court in the Zain murder case and denied having witnessed Mustafa Kanju, son of former state minister Siddique Kanju, allegedly killing the young man.

Witnesses Ashraf, Arshad and Sakhawat told the court they were present on the crime scene and did not see any suspect.

The court adjourned hearing till Oct 12, and directed the prosecution to produce more witnesses.

The complainant of the case and eight other witnesses had already refused to identify Mustafa Kanju as the killer of Zain.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2015

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