Pak anti-graft body arrests PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif in Rs 14-bn housing scam

TIL Desk/World/Islamabad/ Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif was arrested by the country’s anti-corruption body on Friday in a Rs 14 billion housing scam case.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said that Sharif, the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, was detained for his alleged misappropriations in Ashiana Housing Scheme in Lahore during his tenure as the Punjab province Chief Minister from 2013 to 2018.

The bureau had launched a probe into the scandal after the housing scheme for poor people failed due to alleged corruption. The NAB said that the younger brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be presented before the accountability court on Saturday. The body is expected to seek Shehbaz Sharif’s remand.

He will be kept in a highly-secured lock-up inside the NAB Lahore office until his appearance in court. Pakistan’s Supreme Court advocate Shahzad Akbar told the local media that the law allows the NAB to seek 90-day detention of Shehbaz Sharif for further investigation.