23 residential properties of Shahbaz, wives, sons: Freezing order issued

After freezing and banning transfer of shares of almost all movable and immovable industrial properties of leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif and his family, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has now frozen all residential properties in the country owned by Shahbaz Sharif, his wives and sons in connection with an ongoing investigation in accumulating assets beyond means and money laundering cases.

In this regard, NAB Lahore Director General Shahzad Saleem on Tuesday issued six notifications for action against Shahbaz and his family members including wives and sons. Each order carries separate details of 23 properties owned by the family members who are nominated in a number of corruption cases being probed by NAB.

As per a NAB order, Shahbaz owns two houses in The Cooperative Model Town Society Ltd in Model Town and one bungalow in Nishat Lodges, Daunga Gali, in Abbottabad in the name of his wife Nusrat Sharif. Similarly, the former Punjab chief minister also owns a cottage, a villa, and a six marla plot in Khasra and two houses in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Phase-V Lahore in the name of his second wife Tehmina Durrani.

About the immovable properties of Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz and his brother Suleman, the NAB stated that both the accused own two plots in Chiniot's Tehsil Bhowana, nine in MA Johar Town Lahore and four in Judicial Colony Phase 1 (extension).

The NAB order cites an "investigation against accused Shahbaz Sharif, Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, Suleman Shahbaz and others for offence (s) of corruption and corrupt practices as defined under section 9(a) punishable under section 10 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 read with section 3 of Anti-money Laundering Act 2010". It added that the evidence collected "so far" during the investigation presented "reasonable grounds" to "believe" that the accused have "committed aforementioned offences".

Furthermore, the accountability bureau said the freezing order will remain in force for a period of 15 days within which it will file an application in an accountability court under section 12 of the NAO 1999.

Last month, the NAB after freezing almost all movable and immovable industrial properties had directed the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to stop PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and his family members from transferring their shares/revenue in six companies.

The NAB had also appointed its official in each of the six companies, ie, Sharif Poultry, Chiniot Energy Limited, Sharif Dairy, Ramzan Energy, Crystal Plastic and Al-Arabia to monitor the business transactions.