LAHORE: A Lahore accountability court on Tuesday remanded PTI President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi to the custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) till August 21 in a case pertaining to bribes over development project contracts.
A day earlier, the former Punjab chief minister was arrested by the anti-corruption watchdog shortly after he was released from Adiala jail. He was set free upon the completion of his 30-day detention, which was under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance.
But as soon as he wal¬ked out of Adiala jail’s gate, he was taken into cus-tody by a NAB team, headed by Deputy Direc¬tor Najamul Hassan. The team consisted of personnel from the bureau’s Raw¬a¬lpindi and Lahore zones. Later, police obtained a one-day transitory rem¬and of the PTI leader from a court in Rawalpindi.
The NAB alleges that Elahi received bribes/kickbacks in exchange for getting the “contracts of road schemes of Gujrat Highways Division awarded to favourite/hand-picked contractors”.
His son Moonis Elahi, Mahr Azmat Hayat and others are also accused in the case. The case claims that the co-accused were “involved in causing loss to the government exchequer to the tune of millions of rupees against receipt of commission/kickbacks and committed offences of corruption and corrupt practices” under Section 9(a) of the NAB ordinance, 1999.
Earlier in the day, a frail-looking Elahi was presented before the accountability court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Zubair Shahzad Kiyani. –Agencies
