ISLAMABAD: An accountability court in Islamabad granted two-day transit remand of Sindh Assembly speaker Agha Siraj Durrani to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Durrani was arrested on Friday from outside the Supreme Court by NAB when the apex court rejected his bail and ordered him to surrender to NAB in assets beyond means case.
The PPP leader has been given time to travel to Karachi from Islamabad where he will be taken to jail.
Durrani has been accused of accumulating assets worth Rs1.6 billion, which according to NAB are beyond his known sources of income. On December 3, he requested the top court for pre-arrest bail.
A three-member bench rejected his plea and instructed him to surrender before NAB. “The Supreme Court cannot conduct a hearing on this plea without the high court’s verdict,” Justice Mansoor Ali Shah ruled. “You must have been in jail if SHC had rejected your bail plea. Why should the court offer you leniency when you didn’t surrender to the police?”
The court then adjourned the hearing for a week. It will be heard by Justice Umar Ata Bandial.
Durrani was arrested in 2019. Earlier, in October, the Sindh High Court rejected his bail after which the PPP leader went to the apex court.
