PESHAWAR: An accountability court on Wednesday remanded Syed Masoom Shah, former special assistant to former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti, in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for 12 days in a case of the alleged possession of illegal assets.

Judge Mohammad Ibrahim Khan directed the NAB officials to produce the suspect on Aug 24.

The suspect had remained nazim of Shabqadar tehsil in Charssada district from 2001 to 2004 and served special assistant to then chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti from 2010 to 2013 when there was the ANP-PPP government in the province.

A special prosecutor of NAB, Danyal Chamkani, appeared with the suspect and contended that during inquiry, the bureau had traced several properties of the suspect which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Masoom Shah faces NAB charge of possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income

He said the NAB required physical remand of the suspect to interrogate him about those properties.

The prosecutor alleged that the chief minister was holding portfolio of communication and works and public health engineering departments. He added that suspect Syed Masoom Shah was involved in postings and transfers in the said departments in violation of rules.

Meanwhile, the NAB Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday booked the already arrested former director general of Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA), Arshad Khan, and former assistant director Irfanullah in another case of the alleged Rs300 million embezzlement in the Housing Uniform Assistance Subsidy Programme for Bajaur Agency.

The suspect, Arshad Khan, who was the additional home secretary at the time of his arrest in the earlier case on April 2, is presently detained at the Peshawar central prison and will be produced before the accountability court today (Thursday) for getting his physical custody.

In the earlier case, he is accused of misappropriating funds meant for payment of compensation for damaged properties to conflict victims in Mohmand Agency.

The other suspect, Irfanullah, was freed in that earlier case after his plea bargain application was accepted as he had agreed to return Rs10 million to the NAB.

He was arrested and produced before the court in the present case on Wednesday.

The judge remanded him in the NAB custody for one day ordering his production before him today (Thursday).

The NAB has claimed an inquiry revealed that Arshad Khan, being the FDMA director general, in connivance with Irfanullah and others embezzled millions of rupees from the money meant to compensate terrorism victims in Bajaur Agency.

It added that Irfanullah in connivance with other officials prepared hundreds of counterfeit survey forms of fake and ineligible victims and afterwards included the same in the payment lists in order to embezzle public money.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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