KARACHI: Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Thursday arrested Karachi Development Authority (KDA) Director General Asif Ali Memon on charges of corruption.
Karachi (East) team of the agency Memon and his deputy Atif Khan and registered a case against them.
It merits a mention here the arrests have been made in connection with separate corruption cases and are not related to the probe into the approval for the building of Nasla Tower.
Reports citing sources claimed the graft watchdog received complaints against the officials. The two would now be grilled regarding the charges.
Meanwhile, action has also been initiated against officials who approved Nasla Tower’s construction. The Ferozeabad police registered a first information report (FIR) against the builder of the unit, officials of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA), Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society — a residential neighbourhood in Karachi — and the plot owner.
Nasla Tower is a 15-storey residential building which the top court in October directed to demolish for encroaching on the land reserved for a service road.
On Monday, a two-judge bench — comprising Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed — ordered the police and Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) to probe officials who were involved in the process of approving the building plan for the tower.
The case was lodged on behalf of the state under sections 34 (common intention), 161 (public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect to an official act), 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save a person from punishment or property from forfeiture), 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 447 (criminal trespass) of the PPC.
The complaint said the city commissioner was ordered to submit a report to the court after an investigation from various departments related to the tower.
“When the Karachi commissioner got the aforementioned plots investigated from all the departments, it was found that the aforementioned plot [for Nasla Tower] is 780 square yards in the SMCHS [Sindh Muslim Cooperative Housing Society] papers,” it read.
It added the society had allotted 780 square yards to builder Abdul Qadir who — in collusion with his construction partners and officials from SMCHS, SBCA, Master Plan Department (MPD) and other departments — had erected Nasla Tower on 1,121 square yards — illegally building on 341 square yards of a service road — and sold flats and shops to people.
It said the court had ordered the Deputy Inspector General (East) to register a case against all individuals involved in the irregularities of Nasla Tower from the allotment, construction and mapping.
The FIR added it was already proven from the investigation of records that the building was constructed with “mala fide intent and collusion of related departments”.
As a result and because of the court order, the FIR said a case was being registered against Abdul Qadir, his accomplice builders, the SBCA chief and secretary who allotted the land, SMCHS officials, MPD director and deputy director, their officials as well as those of other departments involved in the scheme.
