PESHAWAR: The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Friday arrested former director general of Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA), Arshid Khan, and two other officers on the charges of embezzling millions of rupees of compensation funds meant for payment to the conflict-affected people for damaged properties in Mohmand Agency.

The suspects, Arshid Khan, presently serving as additional secretary home department, FDMA monitoring officer Sirajuddin and community mobiliser Irfan Khan, were produced before an accountability court which remanded them in the NAB custody for 10 days.

Judge Ms Zarqesh Sani ordered that the three suspects should be produced again on April 13.

According to NAB, the federal government had announced payment of compensation of Rs160,000 for partially damaged house and Rs400,000 for extensively damaged house to the affected people of Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies.

A few days ago the NAB had arrested four other officers, including assistant director of FDMA Irfanullah Khan, UBL Regi Lalma branch manager Amjid Ali, and two officials of HBL, Inayat Kallay in Bajaur Agency, Sardar Khan and Mohammad Ayub in the same case. They have been in custody of NAB. The bureau alleged that the suspects had embezzled the compensation fund of Rs60 million.

The Nab claimed in a press release on Friday that during inquiry it was revealed that Arshad Khan being FDMA’s DG in connivance with others managed to embezzle millions of rupees in compensation payment meant for the militancy-affected people after operation in Mohmand Agency. It is alleged that Mr Arshad verified a list of 122 bogus affected persons and forwarded it to PDMA for payments.

It is added that he further verified and forwarded another 40 survey forms which were not verified and signed by political administration of Mohmand Agency for payments and caused millions of rupees loss to the government exchequer.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2015

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