Shehbaz Sharif accorded warm welcome at Allama Iqbal Int'l Airport
The PML-N president upon his release left the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad.
LAHORE (Dunya News) – The Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif was accorded a grand welcome by party workers at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore on the wee hours of Saturday.
Reportedly, the PML-N president upon his release on bail in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme and Ramzan Sugar Mills cases, took a flight to Lahore.
The two-member bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday had accepted Sharif s request for bail.
Meanwhile, strict security measures were implemented at the airport ahead of his arrival.
Sharif had been taken into custody by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with the Ashiana Housing case on October 5, 2018.
Case history
The former chief minister was charged with awarding illegal contracts to his favorite firm.
He was apprehended during his appearance before NAB in Saaf Pani Company scam. Sources told that three files were tabled before him. The bureau quizzed Sharif regarding a tender awarded to a private consultancy company for a survey of the Saaf Pani company.
The PML-N president had failed to satisfy the probing team of the bureau during the investigation and was ultimately arrested.
The anti-graft watchdog had claimed that the company did not conduct any kind of survey but nevertheless was provided a lucrative sum of Rs 1.5 billion.
Ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s principal secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad became an approver in the case. Fawad Hassan Fawad, in his statement before NAB, had claimed that he had awarded a contract to a “favourite firm” in the Rs14 billion Ashiana Housing project at the behest of Shahbaz Sharif.
The anti-graft agency said that the contract for the housing scheme was won by a construction company titled Chaudhry Latif and Sons but Sharif cancelled it and later on awarded the contract to Lahore Casa Developers – a proxy group of Paragon City (Pvt) Limited, which is said to be owned by ex-Railways Minister Saad Rafique”.
