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KPEC arrests ex-MNA Sardar Mushtaq in land scam case

By Bureau report
October 01, 2016

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ehtesab Commission (KPEC) on Friday arrested a former Member of the National Assembly belonging to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz for his alleged involvement in the Workers Welfare Board land scam.

Additional Deputy Prosecutor General of KPEC Qazi Babar Irshad told The News that Sardar Muhammad Mushtaq was arrested in his native Haripur in connection with the land scam. He said the former MNA had caused loss of millions of rupees to the public exchequer. 

The KPEC prosecutor general explained that Sardar Mushtaq with the connivance of officials of Workers Welfare Board (WWB) sold his 58 kanal of land to the WWB at higher rate than the market value and caused Rs700 million loss to the exchequer.

He said this was the first arrest in the WWB land scam and more arrests were also expected.Meanwhile, the NAB also arrested a patwari Alamgir Khan on the charges of corruption during the acquisition of 400 kanal of land for the Workers Welfare Board at Daag Ismailkhel in Nowshera district.

He was accused of causing more than Rs148.6 million losses to the exchequer. The NAB claimed the accused maneuvered the acquisition process in order to gain kickbacks and abetted the offence of corruption.

 The KPEC will present the ex-MNA Sardar Mushtaq before the Ehtesab Court today for obtaining his physical remand.This is the first major arrest by KPEC after the resignation of its director general Lt Gen (r) Hamid Khan over the curtailment of his powers as a result of amendments in the law.

Our correspondent adds from Haripur: According to a petition filed by Waqar Shah, a former candidate in the election for the National Assembly constituency, NA-19 Haripur, and Riaz Khan, a former union council nazim and close aide of former minister of state Umar Ayub Khan, Sardar Mushtaq had inflicted a loss of millions to the exchequer by changing the category of land he sold to WWB in connivance with revenue officials during 2009.

They had also filed a complaint with the district and session judge Haripur under section 22-A of the CrPc in 2010 seeking registration of case against the MNA, but it was turned down.The NAB had also launched an inquiry into the scam but the case was hushed up as the former MNA had changed his loyalty from the PML-N to the PPP when the latter was the ruling party in the country.

Former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf also visited Sardar Mushtaq’s hometown Khanpur and during his address at a public meeting ahead of the 2013 general election announced a number of uplift schemes worth millions of rupees for NA-19 constituency. However, later he again joined the PML-N secretly. At the time, the PML-N had won the polls and become the ruling party.

Sardar Mushtaq was close relative of former chief election commissioner and chief justice Federal Shariat Court late Sardar Fakhr-e-Alam Khan.  Two of his important political and electoral rivals in Haripur have been Umar Ayub Khan, the grandson of late President Ayub Khan, and Dr Raja Amir Zaman, son of late chief minister Raja George Sikandar Zaman Khan.