Third time’s the charm: NAB arrests Naveed Qadir in PHA land acquisition case

Land aquisition collector and Muhammad Arif also implicated in another housing scheme.

PESHAWAR: NAB Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa rearrested Provincial Housing Authority (PHA) Land Acquisition Collector Naveed Qadir and frontman Muhammad Asif on Sunday.

The two have been accused of illegally raking in more than Rs18 million in the purchase of land for a housing scheme in Surezai in Peshawar. As per revenue records, Qadir does not own any land in this area.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa PHA had planned a housing scheme for government employees and the public at large in Surezai. PHA officials are said to have planted accused Muhammad Asif as a frontman to pay him inflated amounts instead of paying the rightful landowners their dues directly.

Qadir was arrested in April for alleged embezzlement in a PHA housing scheme in Mouza Darwaza, Nathiagali. Sunday marks the third such case in which Qadir has been arrested.

Qadir and Asif were accused of being involved in a multimillion-rupee embezzlement in the Darwaza housing scheme. PHA, using the same modus operandi, had paid Asif instead of the rightful landowners and bypassed the government’s coffers. In the Darwaza housing scheme, the two accused and others reportedly embezzled over Rs400 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th,2014.