NAB arrests four more in Ashiana housing scam

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Lahore, in a late Friday night development, arrested four more accused in its ongoing probe into the Ashiana Housing scam, The News has learnt.

According to NAB officials, among those arrested included the incumbent Lahore Development Authority Chief Engineer Israr Saeed, incumbent Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) Chief Engineer Col (retd) Arif, former CEO PLDC Imtiaz Haider and Bilal Qudwani, another PLDC official.

All the accused, according to NAB were already summoned in the ongoing probe into the Ashiana Housing scam for recording their statements. They said none of them could justify their alleged role in the award of the contract of Ashiana-e-Iqbal project to M/s Lahore Casa Developers, which is a proxy group of M/s Paragon City (Pvt) Limited.

“We had summoned the four accused and they were questioned for several hours. After they failed to clarify the charges levelled against them, they were formally arrested,” the NAB officials said, adding the accused would be produced before the accountability court on Saturday (today) for physical remand.

Earlier, NAB had arrested former director general Lahore Development Authority Ahad Khan Cheema to probe his alleged involvement in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Society scam. He is in NAB custody for the last couple of weeks.