Mustafa Kamal, others given copies of NAB reference

An accountability court on Saturday provided copies of a reference about alleged illegal land allotment to former Karachi Nazim and Pak Sarzameen Party chief Mustafa Kamal, among others.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has filed the reference against Kamal, DJ Builders’ Muhammad Dawood, Muhammad Yaqoob, Muhammad Irfan and Muhammad Rafiq, government officers Fazlur Rehman, Iftikhar Kaimkhani, Mumtaz Haider, Syed Nishat Ali, Nazeer Zardari and others.

According to the anti-graft watchdogs, the suspects in connivance sold off an over 6,000 square yards plot owned by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation in the upscale Clifton neighborhood to a private builder to make up a high-rise.

The plot, measuring over 6,632 sq yds, situated between Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine and Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim, was supposed to be given to sea-shell hawkers to set up stalls, according to NAB; however, it was illegally sold to builders at a below the market price.

NAB maintained that Kamal approved the commercial status of the plot after which it was sold to DJ Builders, which later sold it. It added that the price of the plot was shown to be Rs260 million while it valued more than Rs2.5 billion.

It said that first the plot was divided into 198 stalls, to be handed over to hawkers, but no implementation was done on it. Later, in 2007, the plot was amalgamated into one and sold off to DJ Builders. In 2014, the plot was sold for a skyscraper.

NAB maintained that the process was illegal as neither the status of the plot could be changed nor a building higher than one-storey could be built on it. It added that the suspects using their influence caused a huge loss to the national exchequer.

Talking to media after the hearing, Kamal said that his integrity and honesty was hurt by the reference and he would fight against it. He said that NAB concocted the case against him on baseless allegations.

On Friday, the Sindh High Court had granted protective pre-arrest bail to PSP leader Mustafa Kamal in the reference.

Kamal had filed petition in the high court for obtaining pre-arrest bail in the NAB reference pertaining to alleged commercial conversion of KMC land in the Clifton area, which was allotted for the purpose of a hawkers’ zone and later sold to a private builder.