NAB takes Saad Rafique to parliament for NA committee meeting

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Saad Rafique was taken to the Parliament Lodges by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team on Tuesday morning after his production orders were issued by the speaker National Assembly a day ago, ARY News reported.

Rafique will attend the meeting of NA Standing Committee for Law and Justice around noon.

The NAB has declared residence of Rafique in the parliament lodges as sub-jail.

The production orders of Khawaja Saad Rafique and his brother Salman Rafique were issued by the Speakers of National and Punjab Assemblies, respectively.

Currently, the Khawaja brothers are in the custody of the NAB over financial irregularities in the Paragon Housing Society scandal.

Last week, the PML-N had sought production orders for Khawaja Saad Rafique to enable him to attend the upcoming session of the lower house of Parliament.

His party leaders Rana Sanaullah and Marriam Aurangzeb had submitted a request to NA Speaker Asad Qaiser to issue production orders for the former railways minister.

Paragon Housing Society scandal

The NAB had launched the investigation into the scam in November, 2018, after a number of victims staged protests and held a press conference at the Lahore Press Club against what they termed housing society’s fraud.

Qaiser Amin Butt, a director of the Paragon Housing Society, was arrested in the month of November and agreed to become an approver and recorded his statement before the chairman NAB.

Sources said that Qaiser, who is a close friend of Khawaja Saad Rafique, revealed that Paragon Society was not approved by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and Khawaja brothers were the beneficial owners of the housing scheme.

He further disclosed that Paragon City Director Nadeem Zia was responsible for all transactions and Khawaja brothers used to receive all money in cash, sources added.

Paragon Society was not approved by the Lahore Development Authority and Khawaja brothers were the beneficial owners of the society, Qaiser had revealed.