KARACHI: After spending around five and a half months in the custody of different law enforcement agencies, an accountability court sent former federal minister Dr Asim Hussain to prison on judicial remand in a corruption inquiry being conducted by the National Accounta­bility Bureau on Tuesday.

However, the quantum of the alleged graft has increased exponentially as the apex anti-corruption watchdog, which previously said its inquiry involved around Rs13 billion corruption, claimed on Tuesday that the amount embezzled was in fact a whopping Rs462bn.

Dr Asim, a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, was arrested in August last year by Rangers and after three-month preventive detention the paramilitary force handed him over to police in a case pertaining to sheltering and treating alleged terrorists at his hospitals. Later, NAB got his custody in December for a graft investigation.

NAB initiated an inquiry involving an amount of Rs13bn against the former petroleum minister into his alleged misuse of authority in fraudulent allotment of plots and encroachment of state land for Dr Ziauddin Hospital/Trust, illegal gains, kickbacks and commission through a fertiliser cartel for illegal curtailment of gas for exploitative price hike and black marketing in 2010 to 2012, fraud with the public in the name of charity hospital and money laundering.

After the end of his sixth physical remand, NAB produced him in court again and the investigation officer sought another 15-day extension in his custody for more questioning, collection of further evidence and arrest of absconders.

However, the defence lawyers strongly opposed the plea stating that he had already spent over five and a half months in the custody of different law enforcement agencies and since Dec 11, 2015 he was being questioned by NAB.

After hearing both sides and examining documents, the administrative judge of accountability courts, Saad Qureshi, sent Dr Asim to prison on judicial remand till Feb 22 and directed NAB to complete the investigations and submit a report within the stipulated period.

The former petroleum minister is currently under treatment at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for psychological and neurological ailments. In the light of a court order, he was hospitalised last month upon the recommendation of a medical board constituted by the JPMC director.

Hospital officials said that Dr Asim was brought back to the facility after his production in court. Jail officials, however, said that he would be shifted to prison after the approval of the medical board.

Meanwhile, the court also allowed an application of Dr Asim seeking better facilities at prison.

At the outset of the hearing, the IO submitted a progress report in which he showed that the alleged amount embezzled was Rs462.5 billion. He also showed former chief executive officer of the Karachi Dock Labour Board Safdar Husain, the administrator of Ziauddin Medical Centre-Dubai Abdul Hameed and former Karachi Development Authority officials Syed Athar Hussain and Masood Haider Jaffri as absconders.

The report said that in order to further establish the offence regarding misuse of authority allegedly committed in the name of national load management, two former secretaries of the petroleum ministry — Ejaz Chaudhry and Waqar Masood — had been put on notice for questioning and they would join the investigation on Feb 12.

It maintained that a report regarding the investigations about Dr Asim had been sent to the competent authority for approval as required under Section 168 (report of investigation by subordinate police officer) of the criminal procedure code.

Referring to the allegations of money laundering, it stated that some transactions of foreign remittances had surfaced through the bank accounts of Dr Asim and he had so far been unable to justify the amount and sought two days to provide some documents in an attempt to validate the same.

The suspect was also required to justify his investment with British national of Pakistani origin Sajid Bashir in the United Kingdom, though he denied his involvement, but confirmation in his regard was being sought through some credible channels, it added.

On Aug 26, 2015, the Rangers picked up Dr Asim, the chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission with the status of a provincial minister, from his office in Clifton and placed him under three-month preventive detention for inquiry since they claimed to have credible information about his involvement in using embezzled funds to finance terrorism.

Following the end of his three-month detention, the Rangers handed him over to police in November after lodging a case for allegedly treating and harbouring terrorists and gangsters at the North Nazimabad and Clifton branches of his hospital at the behest of some Pakistan Peoples Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders.

The police kept the custody of Dr Asim till Dec 11, 2015 when they produced him before the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts and informed the judge that Dr Asim was being released for lack of sufficient evidence.

However, on the request of NAB, the court handed him over to the anti-corruption body shortly after his release by the police.

Later, the administrative judge of the ATCs threw out the police report about Dr Asim’s release in the terrorism case and sent the case to the ATC-II for trial.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016