Journalist’s widow taken away by NAB
KARACHI- The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Ms Shamim Alim, widow of former Dawn staffer the late Alimuddin Pathan, in the early hours of April 28, 2003.
A party comprising over a dozen personnel, led by a Major Zulfikar and a NAB inspector Athar Shah, descended on Mr Alimuddin Pathan’s house in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and claimed that they had a warrant of arrest signed by NAB Chairman Lt-Gen Muneer Hafiz. However, none of the family members were allowed to read the contents of the warrant.
“They simply demanded Ms Shamim’s national identity card and after ascertaining her identity took her away with them in a truck,” one of the family members who witnessed the whole affair.
Later in the afternoon, a senior official of NAB, Sindh, talking to journalists in his office, alleged that the late Alimuddin Pathan had illegally occupied one of the properties of the defunct National Motor Alliance. He refused to oblige the journalists when he was asked to reveal specific charges against Ms Shamim.
Sponsors and directors of the National Motor Alliance had collected huge sums of money from people in Karachi by promising attractive rates of return during the ’80s and ’90s. Properties were also purchased against this collection. The NAB official alleged that the house in which Alimuddin was living with his family was one such property of the National Motor Alliance.
Alim’s family members contend that Rs1.5 million was paid for the purchase of this house and when a dispute arose a sum of Rs300,000 was deposited in the Sindh High Court. The family was allowed to live in the house by the court till final disposal of the dispute of the house, located opposite the Aziz Bhatti Park.
The NAB had asked for the sale documents of this house from Alimuddin’s family. Copies of the documents were given immediately. The name of Alimuddin’s widow figured nowhere in the documents, it is said.
Ms Shamim was kept in the Women Police Station on Monday. Police sources said NAB had obtained her signatures on three documents during custody.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/29/2003
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