Property developer and owner of Bahria Town group, Malik Riaz Hussain, who boasts of connections with top military brass and senior politicians, plans to move into media to protect himself from those who accuse him of wrongdoing.
Riaz is one of the country's richest and most powerful businessmen, a billionaire who has been caught up in corruption investigations and who is also well known for upmarket gated housing communities and charitable activities.
Now the 66-year-old wants to build a media empire, which he hopes he can use to promote his own commercial interests and fend off those trying to tarnish his name.
"I will go into media very soon. I will launch many TV channels, not one," Hussain told Reuters in a rare interview earlier this month at his Bahria Town housing development, just outside the capital Islamabad.
"To stop blackmailers, I have decided that there is no way but to go into media."
A world away from the chaotic, dirty streets of most Pakistani towns and cities, Bahria Town features giant replicas of the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.The roads are clean and smooth, grass is imported from Thailand and private guards provide round-the-clock security.
Bahria Town is larger than the capital itself, and is part of a property portfolio that includes more than 40,000 acres of developments across the country and pays salaries to 60,000 employees.
Frank admissions
Hussain says he is Pakistan's sixth largest tax payer. He also publicly states that he has paid bribes to top politicians, judges and even members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency.
The publicity wing of the military declined to comment on Hussain's allegations.
"If I tell you the amount of the biggest bribe I have ever paid, you will have a heart attack," Hussain said.
In a public deposition in 2012 that hit Pakistani headlines, he said he had bankrolled the playboy lifestyle of the son of the country's chief justice in return for favourable treatment in court cases related to his empire.
The case is ongoing, though it has stalled.Hussain also currently faces several investigations by the national corruption watchdog. Among the allegations against him are illegally grabbing land and using favour with politicians to have state-owned property allotted to him at throwaway prices.
When asked about Hussain, the National Accountability Bureau said it did not comment on individual cases.
Hussain denies wrongdoing, and says he needs the platform of television news channels to help defend his reputation.
"I don't want to go into media, but there is no other way to handle this."
He hopes a presence in Pakistan's young and boisterous news sector could also highlight his charitable contributions.Hussain previously held the license to Bol TV, a fledgling news channel, before he transferred it to software company Axact in 2013, documents from the national media regulatory body show. Hussain denies ever being involved in Bol.
The channel was closed last year after the government launched an inquiry into Axact's business practices.
Spurred by new technology and largely untouched by censors, Pakistan's broadcast media has flourished in recent years. Between 2002 and 2013, the state issued 89 broadcasting licenses.
Television news channels are largely in Urdu, giving media groups influence over most of Pakistan's 190 million people.
Ties with military?
Hussain's accumulation of wealth is emblematic of Pakistan's nexus of money and connections.
He started his career 30 years ago as a contractor who once sold his family silverware to take his infant daughter to hospital.
His big break came in 1979 when he borrowed 1,500 rupees ($14.34) from a friend and applied for a contract with the military's engineering wing.
That connection led to a long-standing relationship with the powerful military, Pakistan's largest landowner and contractor.
Currently, he has five joint development projects with the army spread over thousands of acres.Recent chatter among Pakistan's elite suggests that Hussain may be losing his influence with the military under the country's army chief General Raheel Sharif. The military declined to comment.
Hussain dismissed such rumours.
"If I didn't have relations with Raheel Sharif, the joint ventures would have shut down, wouldn't they?" Hussain said. "I am friends with the army, I am friends with the institution."
Television anchors Hamid Mir and Absar Alam filed on Thursday a joint petition with the Supreme Court seeking an inquiry into the list of journalists and anchors who were allegedly granted favours by owners and administration of Bahria Town Ltd.
They have asked the court to direct the Bahria Town and its former chairman Malik Riaz to appear along with a proof of all the persons, including journalists, military officials and bureaucrats and any other individual whom they have tried directly or indirectly to buy favours from.
The context in which the petition has been filed is very clear. Soon after real estate tycoon Malik Riaz claimed that he had paid huge sums of money to Arsalan Iftikhar, the son of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, for possible relief in certain court cases, a leaked conversation between Mr Riaz and two anchorpersons during intervals of a talk show had provoked public anger against the media. The following day a list apparently on the letterhead of the Bahria Town was circulated on social media, containing names of the anchors and journalists allegedly paid hefty amounts by the Bahria Town besides luxury cars, plots, houses and sponsored visits to foreign countries.
The petition seeks directions to the Federal Board of Revenue to produce asset and income statements of all media persons under scrutiny and question. It also seeks directions to the Federal Investigation Agency to inquire as to who spread the list of media persons on social media and through short messaging service (SMS).
The scope of the petition is wide ranging as it not only challenges the legality of establishment and maintenance of secret fund by the information ministry and seeks the court to summon complete record of the money doled out to various elements along with the purpose, but also pleads for asking the DG of Anti-Corruption of Punjab police to reveal reasons of hushing up a scam involving misuse of Rs640 million government funds. It also questions the legal status of code of conduct for the electronic media and calls for disclosure of assets and political affiliation of TV channel owners.
The petition says it was essential that rags to riches story of Malik Riaz be made public as to how an ordinary man over the course of less than two decades became one of the richest man in the country. It questions the dubious nature of land acquisition by Malik Riaz and the Bahria Town and calls for exposing certain criminal element aiding and abetting Malik Riaz as his muscle by their active role in forcibly taking over possession of land from real owners.
The petitioners have asked the court to either adjudicate and inquire into the issues itself or to constitute a commission for the purpose.
