ISLAMABAD – The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has launched an internal inquiry against one of its National Assembly members Anjum Aqeel Khan for allegations of corruption in the real estate business in the capital.
“Though Anjum Aqeel Khan has settled the National Police Foundation (NPF) scam by paying back Rs 5.8 billion in cash or kind following negotiations with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the party is conducting a thorough inquiry into the matter to learn about the nature of Aqeel’s involvement in the multi-billion rupee housing scam,” said a PML-N source who wished to remain unnamed.
According to an inquiry report submitted to the Interior Ministry in January this year, Khan had been found guilty of inflicting huge financial losses on the NPF in a land deal brokered by his company Land Linkers in 2002. The source said that the PML-N central command had also received complaints that Khan, being a member of the special parliamentary committee on the National Assembly Employees Cooperative Housing Society (NAECHS) scam, had tried to save the skin of the culprits behind the fraud.
The special parliamentary committee, in its report tabled in the house in February this year, had charged several incumbent and former top officials of the National Assembly Secretariat and the capital administration for embezzlement of hundreds of millions of rupees in the housing society scam.
The source said that National Assembly Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had learnt that Anjum had tried his best to influence the four-member special parliamentary committee to get former Islamabad deputy commissioner Asadullah Faiz exonerated but resistance from the committee chairman and the other two members had foiled his attempts.
“Nisar is unhappy about the surfacing of one scandal after another against Anjum Aqeel Khan in the real estate business and has told Saira Afzal Tarar, PML-N MNA and Adviser to the Punjab Chief Minister, to conduct an inquiry into such complaints and submit a report to him,” said the source.
The source said that if allegations against Anjum were proven, he might lose his seat in the National Assembly, or at the very least the party would not award him a ticket in the next general elections.
