LAHORE: In a surprising move, the police on the complaint of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday booked 90 victims of the Eden Housing Society multi-billion scam for staging a protest demonstration which what the bureau said ‘turned violent’ outside its provincial headquarters.

According to the FIR registered in the Chuhng police station, some 80 to 90 people related to the Eden Housing Society case held a demonstration outside the NAB Thokar Niaz Beg office on Thursday.

NAB officials told the five representatives that a reference against the society owners had been sent to the bureau’s Islamabad headquarters for approval.

“The protesters instead of understanding the legal implications of the case turned violent and started hurling abuses at the NAB top officials. When NAB officials tried to placate them, they hurled threats at them and also attacked them,” it said, alleging the protesters also forced their entry into the main building gate and damaged the walk-through gate and ‘precious’ pots. However, the officials controlled the situation.

The 90 affected people of this scam have been booked under sections 186, 506, 427, 147 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code. Of them five are nominated suspects.

One of the affectees contradicted NAB’s version, saying they remained peaceful during Thursday’s demonstration.

“Rather NAB officials hurled abuses at the protesters for pressing for their demands and not leaving the venue,” she said.

Talking to Dawn, another person said NAB should better grill and recover their looted money from the owners of the Eden management instead of getting registered a criminal case against them (affeetees) which was unprecedented.

“We appeal to NAB Chairman retired justice Javed Iqbal to look into the matter and ensure justice to us,” he said.

There are more than 11,000 affectees in this scam.

Eden Housing owners Dr Amjad and his sons, Dr Murtaza Amjad and Mustafa Amjad, fled to Canada early last year after the Ministry of Interior did not place their names on the Exit Control List (ECL) despite NAB’s request. Subsequently, NAB seized property of the Eden Garden Housing Limited worth more than Rs15bn and announced that it would soon start compensating the affectees.

“NAB had been in contact with the main owner of the group (Dr Amjad) through his lawyers for months and tried to work out the plea bargain, which couldn’t be reached as he (Dr Amjad) wanted to negotiate it on his terms and condition,” a source had told Dawn. He said NAB also showed no sense of urgency to compensate the affectees despite a number of demonstrations held by them.

The PTI government had given a hope to the affectees of getting back their hard-earned money last September when the Federal Investigation Agency arrested Dr Murtaza Amjad, who was also the son-in-law of former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in Dubai with the help of Interpol.

Science and Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry, who was then the minister for information, also claimed bringing the other suspects back (from Canada) in the housing scam. Prime Minister Imran Khan sought a detailed report on the scam. The real estate scandal was unearthed in 2013 but the then CJP (Iftikhar Chaudhry) had fixed the case before his bench to ‘provide relief to in-laws of his daughter’, Mr Chaudhry alleges.

Dr Murtaza has been released of late in Dubai as the PTI government failed to provide any evidence required for bringing him back to Pakistan to put him on trial.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2019