Judge Usman Ali Awan on Saturday allowed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to check the bank accounts of those accused of involvement in the Kurri land scam. He also extended a five-day physical remand of Capital Development Authority (CDA) Assistant Director Revenue Mian Aftab Ahmed and Land and Rehabilitation Directorate Admin Officer Asghar Ali and handed them over to the FIA.
Besides the abovementioned two officials, the FIA had also nominated seven others in the case registered the other day. They include former director land and rehabilitation Waseem Shamshad, Deputy Director Abdul Rasheed, Assistant Director Technical Malik Mumtaz, Sub-Engineer Khalid Khokhar, Naib Tehsildar Ghulam Ali, Gardawar Ghaniur Rehman and Patwari Shahid Mehmood.
The FIA produced two of the accused before the judge after the expiry of a two-day physical remand and said Ali, then director land and rehabilitation, in connivance with other accused had committed gross irregularities in the survey of Build Up Property (BUP) and allotments of residential plots in the Kurri Model Village, Zone IV, Islamabad.
During the process of investigation, some bank accounts of both accused person had been retrieved, whereas more had to be tracked down to unearth the final destination of illegally earned money, the FIA said. The court accepted the request for checking the bank accounts of Ahmed and Ali.
The FIA told the court tha Ahmed managed to enter fake BUPs and fake names of the affected people in the list prepared in Urdu with malafide intentions and personal gains resulting in allotment of hundreds of plots to compensate bogus nominees.
The other accused, Ali, processed the files of the plots in contravention to the procedure and by-laws prescribed by the CDA.
The FIA further said that Shamshad had already been removed from his post last year for his involvement in the scandal after the Cabinet Division sent a report to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who ordered his suspension.
The investigation agency told the court that the CDA chairman recently revealed that Shamshad had issued 500 allotment letters of residential plots in a single day followed by another 400 the very next day in his absence. A total of 3,961 allotment letters were issued of which more than 2,400 were without approval.
The complaints about fake entries in the award list were lodged with the office of CDA in his absence and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), after which all the allotment letters were cancelled. The FIA requested a physical remand of 12 days as other co-accused were to be arrested on the basis of information provided by them. But the court granted a five-day physical remand and ordered the FIA to produce them again on August 25.
