By Staff Reporter
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday auctioned off one property owned by Malik Riaz, the controversial founder of Bahria Town, and received conditional bids for two others, totalling Rs2.27 billion ($7.94 million), as part of a long-awaited effort to recover “defrauded funds” from a 2019 court-approved plea bargain.
Three other properties up for sale failed to attract qualifying bids, shelving their auction for a later date.
The proceedings, held behind closed doors at NAB’s regional headquarters in Islamabad, barred journalists despite prior invitations to cover the event. Reporters gathered in a separate committee room were handed a brief written summary of the outcome. Outside, dozens of private vehicles lined up, presumed to belong to bidders.
According to NAB, the Rubaish Marquee property in Islamabad fetched Rs508 million, surpassing its reserve price of Rs488 million by Rs20 million. Conditional offers of Rs876 million and Rs881.5 million were submitted for two corporate offices, Corporate Office-I and Corporate Office-II, though final approval from NAB’s competent authority is still pending.
A NAB source told Dawn newspaper that the conditional bids stemmed from bidders seeking to repurpose the premises for other businesses. The three unsold properties, Arena Cinema (reserve price Rs1.1 billion), Bahria Town International Academy (Rs1.07 billion), and Safari Club (Rs1.2 billion), all located in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi, will be re-auctioned, though no date has been set.
“NAB remains committed to transparent recovery of public funds and strict enforcement of accountability laws,” the bureau said in a press release, adding that a re-auction for the unsold assets will be announced “soon.”
The auction targeted six properties, five in Rawalpindi and one in Islamabad, linked to a plea bargain default by Zain Malik, Malik Riaz’s son-in-law and a co-owner of Bahria Town housing schemes. Malik Riaz, currently abroad and reportedly evading arrest, faces multiple cases, including the high-profile £190 million Al-Qadir Trust case and the Bahria Town Karachi case.
The sale followed a Tuesday ruling by the Islamabad High Court, which dismissed Bahria Town’s petitions against the auction, greenlighting the August 7 schedule. In response, Bahria Town escalated the matter to the Supreme Court to block NAB’s actions. “We plan to challenge the high court’s decision in the Supreme Court,” Farooq H. Naik, the firm’s counsel said on Wednesday.
The £190 million case alleges that former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife accepted land from Malik Riaz as a bribe for illegal favors during Khan’s 2018-2022 premiership. In 2019, Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced that Malik Riaz had surrendered £190 million held in the UK to settle a probe into whether the funds were proceeds of crime, with the assets transferred to Pakistan’s government.
The NCA described the deal as “a civil matter” and not an admission of guilt. Pakistani authorities claim Khan’s administration diverted the funds to offset fines imposed on Malik Riaz for illegally acquiring government land in Karachi, rather than depositing them into the national treasury. Khan, sentenced to 14 years in January over the case, and his wife deny the charges, as does Malik Riaz. Pakistan’s government has ramped up its pursuit of Malik Riaz in recent months.
On Wednesday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had uncovered evidence of money laundering worth billions of rupees by Malik Riaz and Bahria Town.
Malik Riaz, long viewed as one of Pakistan’s most powerful businessmen due to ties with political, media, and military elites, has decried the crackdown as politically driven. In a Tuesday statement on X, he warned that his property empire was “on the brink of collapse,” citing frozen bank accounts, seized vehicles, and the arrest of dozens of employees, which he said had nearly halted operations. In January, NAB issued a public notice cautioning against investing in his latest Dubai real estate venture.
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