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Lahore court directs NAB to facilitate Jang Group owner's meeting with family as per law
An accountability court in Lahore on Saturday directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to facilitate the meetings of Jang Group editor-in-chief Mir Shakilur Rehman with his family members according to the law.
Rehman was arrested by the anti-corruption watchdog on Thursday when he appeared before NAB in a 34-year-old case relating to a 54-kanal land allegedly allotted to him in 1986 by then-Punjab chief minister Nawaz Sharif.
The court had on Friday granted NAB 12-day physical remand of Rehman.
Editorial: Mir Shakilur Rehman's arrest bears all the telltale signs of a witch-hunt
On Saturday, Rehman's son Mir Ibrahim Rahman, mother Mrs Khalilur Rehman and wife Shaheena Shakeel filed an application in the court, seeking permission to visit the media mogul on a daily basis.
The application stated that Rehman is "an old and sick person, who needs medicines and other ancillaries for the safety of his health on daily basis". Due to his poor health, the visits by his family on a daily basis are necessary to ensure the provision of medicines, food and other items, it added.
"If the above-said facilities are not allowed to be provided on [a] daily basis to [Rehman] then his health may deteriorate day by day which cannot be tolerable for him. There is [a] serious health risk due to the various ailments," the plea said.
It further added that if the application for Rehman's family members to visit him on a daily basis is not granted, then he "may suffer irreparable loss of his health and life".
Accepting the request, Judge Ameer Muhammad Khan directed the NAB investigation officer to "proceed in accordance with law and SOP on the subject and facilitate the interaction of family members".
On Thursday, Rehman had appeared before a combined investigation team of NAB at its Lahore headquarters at Thokar Niaz Beg and answered its queries for more than two hours.
“As Rehman could not satisfy the NAB team regarding its queries, an arrest warrant was served on him and he was detained in the bureau’s lockup,” an official source had told Dawn.
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