LAHORE: Two suspects in the Lahore Defence Housing Authority (DHA) City scam case were charged by an accountability court on Wednesday for allegedly trading thousands of kanaals of land fraudulently on DHA’s behalf.
Of the two accused, Hamid Arshad had signed an agreement with DHA on June 14, 2010, promising to provide 25,000 kanaals of land located in a single tract, or at least close together, for over Rs2 billion.
However, Arshad was able to provide only 13,092 kanaals spread in four different areas to DHA. According to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor Waris Ali Janjua, even the land which was provided was mostly located on the riverbed of River Ravi and was inaccessible by road.
The prosecutor further told the court that Arshad had collected about Rs15.47 billion from public by duping them with fake allotment letters. An enquiry was initiated against the accused after citizen Nouman Dawood and DHA filed complaints against his illegal activities.
“NAB received the first complaint against Arshad on March 2, 2011. By Feb 4, 2015, the bureau had completed the verification process on the various complaints against him,” Janjua informed the court.
The second of the accused Brigadier (retd) Khalid Nazeer Butt was an assigned project director for DHA Lahore.
He was accused of approving the project while the master plan was yet to be approved by DHA, the prosecutor told the court, saying that the requirement of allocating 30 percent of the plots to martyrs’ families had not been met when Brigadier Butt had already ratified the project.
Of the promised 25,000 kanaals of land, only 4,252 kanaals had been available when Butt had signed the contract, the prosecutor further told the court.
“Retired Brigadier Khalid Nazir Butt abused his power as the project director,” said Janjua.
The court adjourned the hearing till December 22 while ordering that witnesses be presented in the next hearing of the case.
Earlier, the court had declared former chief of army staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s brother Kamran Kayani and Tariq Siddiqui as absconders in the same case.