KARACHI — A provincial anti-corruption court in Karachi has extended the physical remand of Zamir Abbasi, the former Project Director of the Yellow Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, by an additional three days. The judicial order directs that the accused remain in the custody of anti-corruption authorities to facilitate deeper interrogations. Furthermore, the court instructed the investigating officer to present a comprehensive progress report detailing fresh findings at the next scheduled hearing. The corruption case names both Zamir Abbasi and Director Procurement Jhaman Das as primary suspects accused of gross misuse of authority and procedural misconduct.
According to official investigative briefs, the accused officials are charged with providing illegal financial advantages to corporate contractors tasked with implementing the BRT infrastructure. The investigation revealed that the underlying engineering and procurement contracts contained absolutely no statutory provisions or clauses permitting advance payments or state-backed financial assistance to the vendors. Despite these explicit legal limitations, the officials allegedly authorized the release of approximately PKR 8.5 billion to contractors without securing the mandatory bank guarantees. Anti-Corruption authorities asserted before the bench that this unchecked distribution of public funds bypassed standard regulatory mechanisms, resulting in a direct, multi-billion-rupee loss to the national exchequer.
