Shehbaz Sharif indicted in housing scam

Lahore, February 18

Pakistan’s Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif was indicted by an accountability court on Monday for corruption in a Rs 1,400 crore housing project.

Shehbaz (67), the president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was indicted along with nine others in the Ashiana Iqbal Housing scam case.

He along with other suspects appeared before the accountability court in Lahore as Judge Syed Najamul Hassan heard the case, the media reported.

Judge Hassan then framed charges against Shehbaz and the nine other suspects, including former principal secretary to prime minister Fawad Hassan Fawad. Shehbaz and the other suspects rejected the charges and decided to contest the allegations.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had taken Shehbaz, the brother of jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, into custody on October 5. He is accused of allegedly misusing his authority by cancelling the contract of a successful bidder in the scheme and awarding the same to his favourite firm when he was the chief minister of Punjab province.  — PTI