January 24, 2008	Thursday	Muharram 14, 1429

GUJRANWALA, Jan 23: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) arrested 72 gazetted and 778 non-gazetted officers besides registering cases against a number of tehsil and union council nazims for corruption charges in the year 2007.

This was stated by Punjab ACE director-general Brig Muhammad Aslam Ghumman (retired) here on Wednesday.

He said the ACE had received 19,554 complaints during the period while 95 per cent of them were settled.

The DG said that 75 per cent complaints filed were found baseless. He warned that in future the complainant would be jailed for seven years with a fine of Rs20,000 in case of fake and baseless complaint.

He said 9,032 corruption cases were registered during the year while 16 per cent of them were found bogus. At least 168 government employees booked for corruption were sent to jail after the prosecution proved charges against them.

Mr Ghumman said that 7,860 proclaimed offenders involved in corruption cases were also arrested besides recovering Rs55 billion from them which was more than the double amount recovered in 2006.

He gave out that several senior ACE officers, including five inspectors and grade 17, 18 officers, were arrested and sent to jail for corruption.

The DG said the ACE had got vacated state land worth millions of rupees from land grabbers.

The government had provided new vehicles to ACE officers and staff worth Rs200 million besides other better facilities, he said. human agents: The federal investigation agency (FIA) claimed to have arrested three human agents and recovered fake visa stickers, passports and other documents from their possession here on Wednesday.

Acting on a tip-off that accused Khalid Javaid Bhatti, Wajid Latif and Saifullah were present in their houses, the FIA team led by sub-inspector Ajmal Sindhu, raided there and arrested them. The raiding team seized five passports, fake visa stickers and other documents from them.

Meanwhile, FIA (passport cell) additional director Hussain Asgher arrested some 73 people from the Islamabad airport who were deported by the Turkish government. The arrested deportees were brought to Gujranwala on Wednesday where they were being quizzed.

RESERVED: District returning officer Nazir Ahmad Ganjana on Wednesday reserved the decision of posting and transfer cases of three SHOs which would be announced on Thursday (today).

PPP and PML-N aspirants for seats of national and provincial assemblies — Abdullah Virk, Rana Nazir Ahmad, Zulfikar Bhinder, Waqas Haider, Asima Shahnawaz, Ijaz Samman and Iftikhar Ahmad Cheema — had moved the court alleging that PML-Q aspirants Rana Shamshad Ahmad Khan and others got posted SHOs in their constituencies for pre-poll rigging.

The judge on Wednesday heard SHOs, PML-Q aspirants and senior police officers, including DIG Khadim Hussain Bhatti, and reserved the decision.