Ahad Cheema handed over on 15 days remand

NAB officials had requested custody for further investigations

LAHORE: The ex- director general of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Ahad Khan Cheema has again been handed over to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on a 14-day physical remand along with three other accused persons in Aashiyana-i-Iqbal Housing Scam on Tuesday.

The accused were presented before the court where the NAB prosecutor pleaded for an extension of 15 days remand for further investigations. The investigation officers presented evidences of the alleged involvement of the accused persons in the scam and pleaded before the court that they needed their custody for further investigations.

The investigation officers and NAB prosecution also pleaded before the court that they had sent the evidences including laptop and mobile-phones of the accused to Punjab Forensic Science Agency and other experts. Besides, the analysis of the evidences involved other department also that was taking time.

They also presented before the court the evidences of graft and corruption before the court of the accused persons. NAB prosecution told that they had found substantial evidences of taking 32 kanals of land as gratification by Ahad Khan Cheema for allegedly issuing a contract to a firm illegally.



The court handed over four accused persons including ex- DG LDA DG Ahad Khan Cheema, proprieter of Bismillah Engineering Company Shahid Shafiq, PLDC official Imtiaz Haider and another PLDC official Bilal Qudwai to NAB on physical remand for further investigations.

Six accused had been arrested by NAB for corruption in the case. Two of the six accused identified as Israr Saeed and Arif Majeed has been sent to jail on judicial remand since last week when a NAB prosecutor told the court that they had confessed of their crime and had promised to become approvers in the case.

It was started under public-private partnership. Despite passing of many years, the project has not yet been initiated due to alleged corruption of the accused persons. Besides, failure to initiate the project, the accused persons had played their role in awarding of the contract to CASA developers in violation of Public Private Partnership Act. NAB has alleged that the illegal practice had caused loss worth billions of rupees to the national exchequer.