ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: One of the capital's biggest land scam – Kuri Model Village – took a new turn on Monday when ignoring the bigwigs' involvement, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani suspended the Capital Development Authority's former director land, sources told Dawn .

Dr Waseem Shamshad, serving in the authority for the last two years on deputation, had already been made OSD by CDA Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi on November 26 last year.

Dr Shamshad was accused of allotting hundreds of fake plots in a compensation package given to villagers of Kuri after the CDA acquired their land for developing a model village.

The Cabinet Division sent its report on the land scam to Prime Minister Gilani on Saturday.

“On this report the prime minister ordered suspension of the director,” a senior official of the division, requesting anonymity, said.

On Monday, the suspended official claimed that he was clean and vowed to expose “main characters” at an appropriate time.

He said he met with the CDA chairman and presented his response. “I believe I was suspended because my reply was based on facts. I will expose main characters,” he told Dawn .

He said he would not get justice in CDA's internal inquiry.

Earlier, he had said he was not the sole authority to approve allotment of plots. The allotments, he said, were made with the approval of the capital's deputy commissioner, CDA chairman and board members.

Interestingly, the CDA chief, who ordered cancellation of all allotment letters through an advertisement in national dailies, has recently said all cancelled letters would be issued again and ruled out any irregularity or fraud in previous allotments.

He did not elaborate when these investigations were completed.

A total of 3,961 allotment letters were issued, according to the authority's 'dispatch register', of which more than 2,400 did not have the approval.

But no one has any idea if allotment letters, besides those on the dispatch register, were issued.

Sources in the CDA termed the cancellation of allotment letters eyewash, saying the authority would again allot the plots to the same people.

It has also been learnt that the director land had refused to meet demands of CDA's “political lord” and some ruling party leaders who wanted to get plots in the name of fake villagers.

Sources claim a deal between the villagers' committee and the CDA's political lord was made to include hundreds of fake plots in the compensation package. But the committee backed off when allotment letters were issued to villagers. On this the director land was tasked to 'materialise' the deal but he refused, leading to his removal from the authority.

But S.M. Farooqi, CDA's member estate, denied a deal between the villagers and any political figure. “I don't think the official was removed because he had refused to materialise any such deal,” the official said.