PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Friday arrested Additional Secretary Home & Tribal Affairs Department Arshad Khan and two other officials in a case of embezzlement of compensation funds designated for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
Khan held the position of Director General (DG) Fata Disaster Management Authority at the time when he, in connivance with two others, allegedly embezzled Rs50 million of compensation payment meant for the affectees of the military operations against militants in Mohmand Agency.
Khan along with Monitoring Officer FDMA Sirajuddin and Community Mobiliser FDMA Irfan has been accused of misappropriating millions allocated for the aid of IDPs of Malakand and Mohmand Agency areas.
During the course of inquiry, it was revealed that Khan verified a list of 122 bogus IDPs and forwarded it to Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and Provincial Reconstruction and Settlement Authority (Parsa) for payment.
He further falsely verified and forwarded another 40 survey forms, which had not been verified and signed by the Political Administration Mohmand Agency, for payments and caused a loss of millions of rupees to the Government Exchequer.
Furthermore, another two accused Monitoring Officer FDMA Sirajuddin and Community Mobilizer Irfan managed to pocket millions of rupees by opening fake bank accounts in the name of IDPs through Amjad Ali, a United Bank Limited (UBL) employee and Sardar Khan and Muhammad Ayub of Habib Bank Limited (HBL).
Khan has been accused of using fake smart cards, the duplicates of those provided to IDPs, to withdraw large sums of money.
According to a NAB source, Arshad Khan embezzled over Rs50 million in the scam. The source feared loops holes in the current process of distributing funds to the IDPs from North and South Waziristan.
NAB KP has also arrested Assistant Director FDMA Irfanullah, bank employees Amjad Ali, Sardar Khan and Muhammad Ayub in the same case.
An accountability court on Friday remanded additional home secretary Arshad Khan in NAB custody for 10 days.
