Court re-issues NBW for former KDA chief in graft cases

An accountability court on Saturday reissued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Syed Nasir Abbas, former director general of the Karachi Development Authority (KDA), who is said to have fled abroad after securing bail in corruption cases filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Abbas, along with serving and former directors of the KDA, is facing cases pertaining to misuse of authority, illegal auction, allotments and transfers of state lands, inflicting a collective loss of over Rs410 million on the national kitty.

When the cases came up for hearing before Accountability Court-IV judge Suresh Kumar on Saturday, Nasir Abbas and Muhammad Javed Ahmed, an ex-assistant director, were called absent. However, other accused who are out on bail showed up in the court. Ahmed is said to be a brother-in-law of Abbas.

The investigating officer, Kashif Shaikh, filed a report about the execution of the non-bailable warrants issued by the court on the last date for the arrest of the absconding accused.

He said the NBWs could not be executed on Abbas, who had purportedly fled to Canada without seeking any prior permission from the court.

The judge repeated non-bailable warrants for arrest of the fleeing former KDA chief with a direction to the IO to ensure his arrest and produce him before the court at the next hearing.

At the previous hearing on September 8, the court had bifurcated the cases of Abbas and Ahmed for being absent from the trial proceedings and issued NBWs for their arrests.

Abbas had obtained a post-arrest bail from the trial court in one reference and from the Sindh High Court in three cases, according to officials.

The national graft buster had filed the references in 2018 and 2019. Other accused named in the references include former and serving KDA officials – Nadeem Ahmed Siddiqui, Muhammad Qasim, Ibrahim Ismail Mayet, Amjad Hafeez, Suleman Ismail Mayet, Feroz Ahmed, Muhammad Javed Ibrahim, Abdul Saeed Khan, Syed Mohsin Raza, Kaleemullah Kashani, Muhammad Zeeshan, Muhammad Hanif, Muhammad Kamran, Syed Obaid Ahmed, Khalid Zafar Hashmi, Syed Fuzail Ahmed Bukhari, Irfan Khan Yousufzai, Syed Farzand Ali, Salim Ahmed Zahid and Syed Iftikhar-ul-Hassan.

In one of the references, the KDA officers had allegedly misused their official authority for illegal monetary gains through fraudulent transfers of three residential plots owned by residents/allottees in Gulistan-e-Jauhar.

Abbas has been accused of conniving with other officials and brokers to transfer the plots in Block 6 of Gulistan-e-Jauhar from the original allottees. In another reference, Abbas has been charged with approving amenity plots for illegal use by converting the status of such public welfare spaces into commercial land, causing a loss of over Rs350 million to the exchequer.

A third reference involves auction of 137 commercial plots in Gulistan-e-Jauhar by the KDA in March 2017.