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The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Tuesday wrote to the Islamabad chief commissioner and the capital police chief requesting security arrangments ahead of former president Asif Ali Zardari and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s appearance before a Combine Investigation Team (CIT).
The letter written by NAB Additional Director (Staff) Muhammad Saleem Ahmed Khan to the capital authorities said “it is intimated” that Zardari and Bilawal would appear before the CIT on March 20 (tomorrow).
It said the PPP leaders are to appear “in connection with [an] investigation regarding Fake Bank Accounts Scam.”
In that regard, the letter requested that “necessary security arrangments” be made at the NAB headquarters in Islamabad as well as at NAB Rawalpindi.
On Saturday, a spokesperson for NAB had told DawnNewsTV that the bureau had summonedBilawal and Zardari to appear before it in Rawalpindi in connection with the Park Lane Estate case.
However, the letter written by the NAB official to Islamabad authorities today only mentioned the “Fake Bank Accounts Scam”.
When asked for a clarification, NAB sources only said the notices sent to the father-son duo had “mentioned why they were being summoned”.
NAB had initiated an inquiry against the two PPP leaders in pursuance of allegations that the Park Lane Estate Company (Pvt) Ltd — a Karachi-based real estate firm co-owned by Zardari and Bilawal — along with government officials was behind the illegal transfer of 118.4 kanals of forest land to the firm.
Earlier today, the Sindh High Court had granted Zardari a 10-day protective bail in the Park Lane Estate Company case after hearing a petition by the former president which said that he feared arrest by NAB.