ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ahsan Iqbal is going to file his acquittal petition in Narowal Sports City corruption reference. 

An accountability court of Islamabad heard the case on Wednesday, when the lawyer of former federal minister, Zulfiqar Abbas Naqvi, requested the court to postpone the proceeding and his client intended to file an acquittal petition in the case. 

He informed the court that a recent decision of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) regarding acquittal of Masood Chishti was related to our case as well and on the bases of the said decision he would file an acquittal petition of Ahsan Iqbal in the case. 

He requested the court to stop further proceedings and adjourned the case. The judge accountability court Syed Asghar Ali adjourned the hearing till February 10.  

The NAB Rawalpindi chapter had filed Narowal Sports Complex reference, nominating Ahsan Iqbal, former director-general (DG) Akhtar Nawaz and Sarfraz Rasool, whereas Asif Shaikh and Muhammad Ahmed were also named among the accused.

The reference stated that Ahsan Iqbal misused his authority and increased the budget of the project from Rs34.75 million to Rs2,994 million. The former minister had illegally hijacked the provincial project which costs Rs3 billion instead of Rs730 million.  

Ahsan Iqbal, while talking to media outside the court, said that the incumbent government was spending public money on bogus cases just to defame the opposition. 

He said the PTI government had destroyed the economy. 

He said the PML-N government had borrowed $10 billion in five years and constructed 2000km long motorways, added 11000 megawatt electricity in national grid and started CPEC. In contrast, he said, the PTI government took loans worth $11 billion in two and half years but did not lay a single brick in the country. 

He said that PML-N would take part in the Senate elections as we did not want to give an open field to Imran Khan.