SUKKUR: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) stalwart Syed Khursheed Shah on Saturday released from Sukkur jail after being incarcerated for 25 months in an assets beyond means case.
Khursheed Shah was released after an accountability court verified the Supreme Court’s order for his bail. Shah’s son had submitted bail bonds worth Rs10 million at the accountability court as surety against his father’s bail.
Following his release from Sukkur Central Jail, the PPP workers accorded a warm welcome to the leader. The charged workers showered rose petals on the former opposition leader and chanted slogans in favour of the party leadership.
Two days earlier, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the release of Syed Khurshid Shah after almost two years of incarceration, but with a condition that his name will remain on the no-fly list.
A two-judge bench, consisting of Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, observed that an accountability court seized with the corruption reference against Khurshid Shah would decide his fate by determining whether to keep his name in the Exit Control List (ECL) or not.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had arrested the PPP leader on Aug 18, 2019, in Islamabad after he arrived here to attend a session of the National Assembly. NAB charged him with purchasing 574 acres of land in 2005 for Rs179 million — an amount described by the agency as “well beyond his known sources of income”.
NAB’s top officials probing the matter claimed to have acquired several important records/files from the Sukkur district administration, where revenue officers shared important details, which ultimately led to Shah’s arrest from Islamabad.
“We have acquired details of all assets and property of Mr Shah, his family’s names and his frontmen,” a senior NAB official had said. The NAB official had claimed that the Sukkur NAB team got access to documents, which revealed that Shah through his friend acquired New Taj Hotel, Shikarpur road Sukkur, worth Rs250 million.
