KDA’s four ex-officials jailed for seven years in land scam

An accountability court on Thursday sentenced four former officials of the Karachi Development Authority to seven years in prison in a case pertaining to corruption and China-cutting in the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project.

Accountability Court-II judge Aaliya Latif Unar found former KDA directors Atta Abbad, Fareed Yousufani, Farid Naseem and Shahid Umer guilty of illegally bifurcating the land meant for the redevelopment project into plots through China-cutting and selling them to the public without conducting an auction and causing losses to the exchequer worth millions of rupees.

The judge noted that the prosecution had successfully proved the charges against the defendants, while they could not bring on record any evidence in support of their claim of not-guilty. A fine of Rs5 million each was also imposed on them.

Special public prosecutor Farah Khan said that the accused had moved a fake note sheet, which never existed in the official records, granting approval to carve out a major portion of the project land into small plots through China-cutting.

She added that the officials then sold those plots to the private persons in an unlawful manner without conducting an auction, adding that the subject plots were also sold out below the prevailing market value. The National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against the KDA officials and private persons for colluding to run this land scam in 2015.