10 March 2005	Thursday	28 Muharram 1426

PESHAWAR, March 9: The National Accountability Bureau has arrested District Police Officer (DPO) Bannu Dilawar Khan Bangash and two other government officials for their alleged connections with a smuggling syndicate of the country.

The DPO has been detain on information provided by smuggler whom he had arrested last year. He and co-accused, customs inspector Rehmat Shah and Crimes Investigation Department (CID) inspector Munawar Khan, were produced before an accountability court on Wednesday. Judge Attaullah Khan remanded them to the NAB custody for 10 days.

NAB sources revealed that arrest of some other police and customs officers was on the cards. An official claimed that the accused were arrested in light of disclosures made by notorious drug smuggler Muhammad Tahir alias Malange and his companion Bakht Sher. They had named various other officers as being on their payroll for providing them free access to Bara markets across the country.

NAB has charged the accused officials with receiving bribe of Rs2 million from accused Malange. Soon after the arrest of Malange, accused Dilawar Bangash, who was a DSP in CID at that time, was promoted to the rank of SP and then the chief minister posted him at his hometown, Bannu, as DPO (Operation). His name was also recommended for award.

The investigation officer of the case, Rizwan Ahmad, appeared before the court and sought physical remand of the accused. Acused Bangash, however, denied the charges and stated that he was punished for arresting the most influential smuggler in the country.

He told the reporters that high ranking customs and police officials had connections with the Malange syndicate and they had victimised him. He said if he had connections with the syndicate he would not have carried out an operation to arrest him.

Malange and his 11 companions were arrested in May 2004, after a shootout with CID police. One of the smugglers, Nisar Khan was killed in the firing. They were booked in a case of encounter with police and on March 4, an anti terrorism court had sentenced them to five years RI with fine of Rs200,000 each in this case.

It is learnt that NAB had interrogated more than 100 officials of police and customs department suspecting them of being in league with Malange. The officials were interrogated after accused Malange and Bakht Sher provided the investigators with details of payments made by them to police and customs officials.

Sources informed Dawn that accused Bakht Sher had claimed that he had paid Rs2 million in two instalments to the officer-in-charge of the whole operation. The said official, according to the accused, had threatened to implicate Malange in some other cases if the money was not paid to him.