PESHAWAR, Jan 1: Acting on the directives of the National Accountability Bureau, the police on Tuesday arrested a former chief officer of the Haripur district council, Syed Anwar Badshah, on charges of corruption.

The accused was produced before an accountability court presided over by Syed Yahya Zahid Gillani which remanded him to the custody of Regional Accountability Bureau for 15 days.

RAB claimed that the arrest had been made on the basis of the finding of a preliminary inquiry, which had confirmed Badshah’s involvement in corruption and abuse of official authority.

Initially, RAB claimed, the overall assets of the former official were estimated at Rs14.3 million which were disproportionate to his known sources of income. The assets included farmland, four bungalows in posh localities of Peshawar and Mardan, exclusive bank accounts, vehicles and other movable and immovable properties.

The accused is a resident of Nawan Killi. RAB said that he hailed from a poor family and his father was an employee of the education department who, on retirement, had joined Auqaf department as khateeb of a mosque.

Between 1961 and ‘67 the accused served in the tourism department before he was employed as secretary of the union council on the recommendation of Syed Altaf, a retired commissioner and his relative.

SMUGGLED GOODS: The anti-smuggling squads of the Peshawar customs collectorate confiscated a variety of non-duty-paid foreign items in the province during the last week, according to a press release issued here on Tuesday.