RAWALPINDI: Two officers of the land revenue department in Pakistan have been granted a two-day physical remand by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Rawalpindi Region.
The officials, identified as Muhammad Salim Akhter and Raja Ashfaq, were booked on charges of being involved in a land fraud case along with the former governor of Sindh, Imran Ismail, and former health minister of PTI, Amir Mehmood Kiani.
ACE had registered a case against ten people, including the former governor and ex-minister, for allegedly submitting altered documents with the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) for the No Objection Certificate (NOC) of a housing society, and for duping the public by selling plots in a bogus housing society named “Avalon City” on Chakri Road.
During the hearing, the ACE Rawalpindi Region’s Sub Inspector Naheem Abbas produced the two accused, seeking their physical remand.
According to the investigators, the accused had issued fards, official land documents, to the owner of an illegal housing society, despite knowing that the fards were illegal.
The aim was to deceive the public and make millions of rupees from selling fake plots. Salim Akhter had also allegedly registered multiple mutations in the land revenue record and was accused of tampering with the official records.
The ACE officer argued that the accused had confessed to tampering with the records and that their physical remand was essential to gather further evidence and investigate the other co-accused in the case. ACE also claimed that the two accused were attempting to shift blame onto others and twist the facts.
The defense lawyers representing the accused pleaded with the court to drop the charges against their clients, as ACE Rawalpindi Region had failed to gather substantial evidence against them.
They claimed that Salim Akhter had nothing to do with the case and that giving approval to a mutation was not the job of a patwari. They also accused the ACE of attempting to frame the two political figures nominated in the case.
After hearing both sides, Senior Civil Judge (Criminal Division) Rawalpindi Ghulam Akbar granted the ACE Rawalpindi Region two-day physical remand of the two officers.
Furthermore, ACE has also begun conducting raids to arrest the former governor of Sindh, Imran Ismail, the ex-minister, Amir Mehmood Kiani, and other accused in the case.
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