ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested on Wednesday the principal accused in the over Rs3 billion Modarba scam committed in the name of a countrywide chain of Mezban superstores.

According to a NAB spokesman, Ghulam Rasool Ayubi was arrested for not fulfilling his commitment made before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) last year to pay the defaulted amount to 3,102 affected people.

NAB had filed a reference against him in an accountability court in December last year but the IHC granted interim bail to him on submission of an undertaking in this regard.

The spokesman said the accused had backed out of the commitment and become an absconder.

He will be presented before a court on Thursday for physical remand.

The accused opened the chain of stores and bought on credit the products for sale, but neither paid their price nor the rent of the shops.

NAB also arrested on Wednesday a contractor, Muhammad Aimal Khan, son of former MNA Muzafarul Mulk, and a sub engineer of the public works department in Swat, Nisar Aziz, over substandard and ‘ghost’ development projects in Mingora’s National Assembly constituency NA-29, causing a loss of millions of rupees to the public exchequer.

The spokesman said the department’s Batkhela division had awarded various projects to Aimal Khan, owner of National Builders.

The official recorded fictitious measurements for unexecuted or partially executed projects and signed bogus entries in the measurement books on the basis of which payments were made to the contractor.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2015