PPP leader, ex-Olympian Qasim Zia arrested

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Punjab arrested senior PPP leader and former Hockey Olympian Qasim Zia on the charge of fraud amounting to millions of rupees and cheating the public at large. Zia, one of the directors of Ali Usman Securities Company, was arrested early on Saturday from his residence following a raid by NAB officials for his alleged involvement in a scam worth Rs80 million, a NAB spokesman told The News. Another director of the company named Ali Usman Saeed was also held by NAB officials late on Friday night.
On Saturday, the former head of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) and former Opposition Leader of the Punjab Assembly Qasim Zia was produced in an accountability court along with Ali Usman Saeed in Lahore where the court remanded them in NAB’s custody for 10 days.
Zia and other officials have been charged with cheating and selling fake shares of Ali Usman Securities to a large number of people, the NAB spokesman said, adding that the company was accused of neither giving profits back to the people for the past two years nor it returning the money worth millions of rupees to the affected people.
To a question, the spokesman said NAB Punjab had received over 80 complaints of affectees with NAB Lahore against Qasim Zia, ex-MPA, along with Muhammad Usman Saeed. He said that the arrests were made after verification of those complaints.
To another question, the spokesman added that now a formal inquiry has been ordered against Zia and other accused for a further probe.
Qasim Zia was a part of the Pakistan Hockey team from 1980 to 1987 and holds an Olympic Gold medal as well. Later, he joined politics and was elected as MPA from Punjab on a PPP ticket and remained the leader of the opposition from 2002 to 2007.