SARGODHA, Aug 20: An Irrigation department patwari was suspended from service for allegedly misappropriating a huge amount of Bhalwal tehsil cultivators.

As per reports, patwari Muhammad Gulzar has been collecting arrears of land revenue from farmers in Bhalwal tehsil for the last 10 years. The patwari collected penalty and revenue from farmers, but deposited only the token amount to the exchequer.

The malpractice going on since then has been unearthed by Syed Abbas Bukhari of Chak 7-SB who deposited Rs4,000 with the patwari. As usually, the patwari deposited only Rs400 to the public exchequer and provided a tampered receipt of Rs4,000 to him after adding a zero figure.

On suspicion, Mr Bukhari went to the clerk concerned from where he learnt that only Rs400 had been deposited against his account and Rs3,600 were still outstanding against him. He lodged a complaint with the Kirana division XEN who suspended the patwari. It is learnt that the patwari has recently purchased a shop at Bhalwal with a sum of Rs2 million.