September 25, 2006	Monday	Ramazan 1, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: Senior Civil Judge Abid Rizwan Abid has exonerated a senior professor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) from charges of misappropriating funds of an NGO providing medical aid to quake-affected people in Azad Kashmir.

The judge ordered the local police to cancel a case registered against Prof (Dr) Mumtaz Hussain, a senior child specialist, with immediate effect.

According to reports, Dr Musaddaq Shah of Pims had lodged an FIR against Dr Hussain last month. He told the police that Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) had its bank account in Muzaffarabad, to which Dr Hussain was one of the signatories.

The bank account had showed no balance when a cheque for Rs45,000 was submitted to draw the money, he claimed and alleged that the money was misappropriated by Dr Hussain.

However, the accused pleaded in the court that although there was no amount in the account when the cheque was submitted, the same day amount was deposited as financial assistance from Unicef.

The court was informed that a promotion case of Dr Hussain was under consideration in the establishment division and that a fake case was made against him to malign his reputation and weaken his promotion case.

Dr Hussain informed the court that he had been working purely on humanitarian grounds for sick and deprived children in the AJK for last nine months.

He said he had not received any funds personally from Unicef, rather, he refused to get the monitoring fee he was entitled to on behalf of the association for the noble service.