Court grants anti-graft body 2-day physical remand of land revenue officers, former governor and ex-minister in land fraud case.

RAWALPINDI -- Senior Civil Judge (Criminal Division) Rawalpindi Ghulam Akbar on Thursday granted the investigators of anti-graft body two-day physical remand of two officers of land revenue department who were booked along with former governor Sindh and ex-minister of PTI in a land fraud case.

The court ordered the investigators of Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) Rawalpindi Region to reproduce the accused identified as Muhammad Salim Akhter and Raja Ashfaq (patwaris) on March 11 for further proceeding against them. Earlier, the anti-graft body had booked as many as 10 persons including former Governor Sindh Imran Ismail, PTI former health minister Amir Mehmood Kiani, his son Fahad Amir Kiani and Asim Aziz, owner of illegal Abdullah City, on charges of submitting tempered documents with RDA for NOC of a housing society and swindling innocent citizens by selling plots in bogus housing society 'Avalon City' on Chakri Road. When court took up the case, ACE Rawalpindi Region Sub Inspector (SI) Naheem Abbas had produced the two accused Muhammad Salim Akhter and Raja Ashfaq and sought their physical remand. On the occasion, ACE Rawalpindi Region Assistant Director Legal Shehzad Ahmed, Assistant Director Nisar Ahmed Joya and Raja Guftar Ahmed and Chaudhry Mehran Anwar Raja, the counsels for accused, were also present in the courtroom.

The investigators of anti-graft body, in the plea for physical remand, argued that the two accused were booked in FIR Number 6 in which patwari Raja Ashraf had issued fards to owner of illegal housing society on October 10, 2022.

'The Fards having signatures and stamp of said patwari were illegal,' he said. He told court that accused had issued the fards against the law to the owner of illegal housing society in order to make him able to pocket millions from innocent public in the name of plots. The investigator added that the other accused Salim Akhter being parwari of Moza Hathyal had registered mutations from 2883 to 2888 besides mentioning another mutation number on 30 June 2019.

The anti-graft body officer told court that the accused also confessed that the stay order issued by a court on the said mutations got expired on 26 July 2019 which proved that they tempered the official record. Now the accused Ashfaq Patwari denied he had signed any mutation whereas Salim Akhter Patwari is trying to...