HYDERABAD: Anti-Corruption Estab­lish­ment (ACE) sleuths raided different offices on Friday, arrested district registrar among four officials of Hyderabad revenue department on charges of financial malpractices and seized record of the public health engineering department office in Ghotki.

ACE Circle Officer Shabbir Sarki arrested Ishaq Shaikh, the district registrar, in the office of inspector general of registration in Shahbaz Building and took him to Tando Mohammad Khan because the charges of financial malpractices on which he had been held dated back to 2006 when he was a sub-registrar there.

The ACE officials would produce him before special judge (provincial) of anti- corruption on Saturday to obtain his remand for further investigation.

Mr Sarki said that Sheikh had issued bogus registries for some tracts of agricultural land in Tando Mohammad to around eight beneficiaries.

He said that there were around 11 other suspects in the case including a mukhtiarkar who had issued a sale certificate but stopped short of disclosing the amount misappropriated by the suspects.

The approval for registration of an FIR against Sheikh and other suspects was given by the Anti-Corruption Committee which was headed by divisional commissioner, he said.

Hyderabad ACE deputy director Irfan Mukhtar Bhutto said that Shaikh was at present a BS-18 officer but when he had committed the offence he was a BS-15 or 16 official. More arrests would follow in the case, he said.

On Thursday, the ACE sleuths arrested three other low-ranking employees of the revenue department on charges of corruption, forgery and misappropriation of funds.

They are; Mohammad Azam Memon, a clerk in Gothabad scheme, Hyderabad; two supervising tapedars, Imtiaz Ali Solangi posted in Qasimabad and Rasool Bux Sipyo posted in Hyderabad taluka.

The chairman of All Sindh Revenue Employees Association, Syed Sardar Shah, has reacted angrily to the ACE raids and slammed alleged torture of revenue employees at the time of their arrest by ACE personnel and said they should be treated as per law because they were not terrorists.

In Ghotki, an ACE team led by assistant director Mukhtiar Lashari and a civil judge conducted raid on the office of the engineer of public health engineering department on Friday and seized four-year record.

Talking to journalists after the raid, Mr Lashari said the ACE took action over reports of large-scale corruption and misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs180 million in drainage schemes of Daharki and Mirpur Mathelo towns.

The amount was drawn against fake bills and misappropriated while no work on drainage schemes was physically carried out on site in both towns, he said.

He said that stern action would be taken against the officials involved in the scam and the contractors if the charge of corruption was proved after scrutiny of the record.

Meanwhile, personnel of Rangers conducted raid on municipal office of Thull in Jacobabad district and asked for office record.

During the raid, Taluka Municipal Officer Nasrullah Sarki and other staff informed the Rangers officials that the record of last two years had already been seized by the ACE personnel for scrutiny.

They showed them documentary proof of the record which had been taken away by ACE officials after which the Rangers officials went away.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2015

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