PESHAWAR: A local accountability court on Tuesday convicted two former General Post Office clerks, including a woman, in two decade-old references of embezzlement in payment of pensions, mostly to the personnel of armed forces, and sentenced them to six years rigorous imprisonment each with different amount of fines to the tune of Rs101.28 million.

Judge Zarqesh Sani ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused, including Nuzhat Begum and Noor Shah, and that the evidence on record connected the two with the commission of the offence.

After the judgment was announced, the police took both the convicts, who were on bail, into custody and sent them to the prison.

The judge, however, acquitted four suspects, including Babu Jan, Umar Daraz, Asmatullah and Sultan Hussain, all GPO employees.

NAB claimed funds drawn in name of ghost pensioners

Arshad Hussain Yousafzai, lawyer for Babu Jan, said his client was falsely implicated in the case as none of the prosecution witnesses deposed against him.

The National Accountability Bureau had filed two references against the six accused, who were serving as clerks at the Peshawar GPO.

The accused were charged with embezzling Rs49.05 million in one reference and Rs12.1 million in the other.

In the first reference, the two convicts were sentenced to six years imprisonment each, whereas Nuzhat Begum was fined Rs12.388 million and Noor Shah Rs16.846 million.

In the second reference, they were sentenced to six years imprisonment with Nuzhat Begum being fined Rs23 million and Noor Shah Rs49 million.

The NAB first arrested Nuzhat Begum, who was serving as family pension payment clerk at the GPO, on Oct 11, 2005.

Afterwards, the five other accused were also taken into custody.

The trial took many years to conclude due to a large number of prosecution witnesses stated to be over 300.

The NAB claimed that pension was drawn by the accused from GPO in the name of ghost pensioners and that they used fake entries and pensioners to misappropriate pension funds.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015

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