LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries Punjab Sibtain Khan has resigned from his post after being arrested on Friday by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in relation to corruption charges against him. An accountability court in Lahore on Saturday granted a 10-day physical remand of former provincial minister Sibtain Khan to the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB).
The anti-corruption bureau has been directed to produce the PTI stalwart before the court on June 25.
Earlier in the day, Khan resigned from his post. In a letter to Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, Khan said that while he will contest the case “on merits [and] in accordance with law”, a private media house reported.
The PTI leader is accused of awarding an illegal contract worth billions of rupees in Chiniot in 2007 when he was serving as provincial Minister of Punjab for Mines and Minerals. No other company was considered during the bidding process for the contract, NAB Lahore said.
It is pertinent here to mention that Khan was elected to the Punjab Assembly as an independent candidate from Constituency PP-39 (Mianwali-IV) in general election, 1990. He received 29,582 votes and defeated a candidate of Islami Jamhoori Ittihad (IJI). He served as provincial Minister of Punjab for Prison from 1990 to 1993. He ran for the seat of the provincial assembly as an independent candidate from Constituency PP-39 (Mianwali-IV) in Pakistani general election, 1997, but was unsuccessful.
Sibtain Khan belongs to the paternal contingency of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Mianwali. Khan previously held the provincial ministry for natural resources in 2007. He was previously a member of Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) before joining PTI.
He was re-elected to the provincial assembly as a candidate of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) from Constituency PP-46 (Mianwali-IV) in 2002. In January 2003, he was inducted into the provincial cabinet of Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and was appointed as Provincial Minister of Punjab for Mines and Minerals till 2007.
