KARACHI, Nov 13: A special anti-corruption court on Saturday recorded statements of the accused in a land scam case.

The former officials of the defunct Karachi Municipal Corporation were charged with unlawfully allotting 200 acres of land of a much larger amenity plot commonly known as KMC Gutter Baghicha to KMC officers' cooperative housing society in 1993.

However, the accused in their statements denied all the charges levelled against them by the prosecution.

The judge of the special anti-corruption court, Rashida Asad, who was conducting the trial, adjourned the hearing till Nov 22 for final arguments.The then commissioner of the Karachi Municipal Corporation, Allahuddin Sabir, former assistant director (land) of the KMC Altaf Ahmed Khan, ex-chief promoter of the KMC officers' cooperative housing society Abdul Hafeez, the then senior director (land), the late Syed Tanveer Abbas Naqvi, and the former SO of the local bodies of the government of Sindh, the late Mohammad Siddiq Dar, were charged with unlawfully allotting 200 acres out of Gutter Baghicha to the cooperative housing society.

A case (FIR No.56/2001) was registered at the Anti-Corruption Establishment, Karachi, under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant or by banker, merchant), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 477 (fraudulent cancellation, destruction, etc, of will, authority to adopt or valuable security) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.

Suspect remandedThe administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts, Karachi, remanded on Saturday a suspect in police custody in the Shershah scrap market attack case till Nov 26.

The police produced Lal Mohammad Magsi in court and sought his remand. The administrative judge of ATCs, Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court, handed over the suspect to police on 14-day physical remand and directed the investigation officer to produce him in court on the next hearing.

The suspect and his absconding accomplices were booked by the Pak Colony police station for their alleged involvement in the attack on the Shershah scrap market on Oct 19 that had left 12 people dead and several others wounded, mostly traders and workers.

The police said acting on a tip-off, they arrested the suspect on Nov 12 within the remit of the Gulbahar police station and recovered illicit weapons from his possession and also booked him under Section 13-D of the Arms Ordinance.