RAWALPINDI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Friday arrested Karachi Development Authority (KDA) Secretary Aftab Ahmed Memon from Islamabad in a case pertaining to illegal allotment of land, a press release said.
The press release further read that Memon was arrested for an investigation into the alleged abuse of power. He has been accused of allotting over 1,700 acres of land in Malir district, causing a loss of around Rs3 billion to the national exchequer. Reportedly, the state-owned land was allocated in favour of M/S Pink Residency and others.
The bureau will produce him before an accountability court today to seek his physical remand.
Memon, who is a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, was indicted in an illegal land allotment case in 2017. He, however, pleaded “not guilty”.
In a recent interview, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari had also expressed his reservations over the accountability law and said that “it [bureau] was created only to pressurise the political parties”.
Referring towards the political engineering, the sitting member of the national assembly (MNA) had said that “from Ayub’s era to Zia’s – it has been a trend in Pakistan to suppress the popularity of PPP”.
“[You see] 1990 general elections is an epitome”, he recalled.
While stressing upon the need for a non-political accountability process, Bilawal had said that the law should treat everyone equally.
The anti-corruption watchdog has been inquiring several PPP leaders in a mega-money laundering scam. In a recent development, it had arrested Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani in a case pertaining to accumulating assets beyond declared means.
