An accountability court in Lahore on Saturday granted the country’s anti-graft body a 10-day physical remand of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) President Shehbaz Sharif in a housing scam case.

The former Punjab Chief Minister, who was taken into custody by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) a day earlier, was produced before the accountability court while the watchdog sought his custody in a “campaign against corruption”.

The NAB said Sharif was involved in corruption in the multi-billion Ashiana Housing Scheme case during his tenure as the Punjab province Chief Minister from 2013 to May 2018.

The hearing was originally scheduled to take place inside the judge’s chamber, but was later moved to an open court following PML-N lawyers’ protest.

A NAB prosecutor told the judge that Sharif had “misused his powers” as the Chief Minister and granted the contract to his favourite company, causing “losses of millions of rupees to the national exchequer”.

The watchdog alleged that the leader of the opposition provided contracts on high rates to unqualified companies of his friends.

Lahore Development Authority’s former Director General Ahad Cheema and senior bureaucrat Fawad Hassan Fawad were already in NAB custody in connection with the scam.

Sharif’s defence lawyer rejected the NAB’s assertions as “baseless”.

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