The National Accountability Bureau requested on Monday an accountability court in Islamabad to speed up Karachi’s Nehr-e-Khayyam reference proceedings. NAB prosecutor Usman Mirza said that 2020 is about to end and none of the suspects have been indicted yet. The court should announce its verdict on the petitions of the suspects, he added. The case was heard by Judge Azam Khan. Fahmida Mirza’s son Hasnain Mirza and Omni Group CEO Abdul Ghani Majeed failed to appear in court. Former KDA administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui appeared before the bench. He is currently out on bail. The NAB prosecutor has accused Ghani of receiving Rs1 billion for illegally allotting the Nehr-e-Khayyam land. Government plots were sold to the Omni Group. Since 2010, the storm water drain has been eyed as prime real estate. It was 150 feet wide, but encroachments have reduced it to 60 feet. Sewerage from Gizri and adjacent localities enter it. Plots were carved out of its banks illegally in collusion with the officers of the Karachi/Sindh Building Control Authority and Karachi Development Authority. It got so bad that by 2018, the Supreme Court ordered a building constructed on its left bank to be torn down.
