Haleem arrested over land grab allegation

PTI team says ACE did not show permission of Sindh Assembly mandatory for arresting an MPA

HYDRABAD:

The opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly MPA Haleem Adil Sheikh has been arrested by Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) in a case pertaining to a land scam allegedly carried out over three decades ago in Malir, Karachi.

A team of ACE Karachi nabbed Sheikh on Wednesday around 3pm from the ACE office in Jamshoro district where he had appeared to record his statement in another FIR of acquiring land allegedly in a fraudulent way in Jamshoro.

He has been accused of causing loss of Rs160 million to the exchequer by forging the land record to get four acres land and for further encroaching on another four acres adjoining land. The land was obtained on a lease of 30 years for poultry farming but a farm house was later established in the name of palm village.

"Sheikh's life is under threat from the Sindh government," alleged Dua Bhutto, wife of Sheikh in a video statement. "He is being moved around in different areas of Sindh in a private vehicle and that too without security." The ACE was supposed to shift him to Karachi where he would be produced before the concerned court for remand on July 28.

She said they were clueless about a new corruption case until Sheikh was rounded up from Jamshoro. "He being a law abiding citizen goes to Jamshoro to record his statement and there you tell him that a new FIR has been registered." She asked why the cases are being pursued now against her husband after he became the opposition leader and why the Pakistan Peoples Party's Sindh government did not open these cases before.

The opposition leader was reportedly made to wait for hours at ACE Jamshoro before circle officer Malir Abdul Wahab formally arrested him. He was also reportedly taken away in a vehicle bearing a registration number of Punjab.

A Hyderabad based legal team of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which tried to file a petition at Sindh High Court Hyderabad bench on Wednesday evening, claimed that ACE did not show permission of the Sindh Assembly which is mandatory for arresting a MPA. They maintained that the establishment's team conducted an offence by not complying with Sindh Inquiries and Anti Corruption Rules, 1995, while apprehending Sheikh.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2022.