HYDERABAD: Officials of the National Accoun­tability Bureau (NAB) seized assets, including prize bonds, worth millions of rupees and documents of immoveable properties also worth millions of rupees, in a raid on the residence of a grade-16 official of the education department, Bachu Mal, here late on Saturday evening, according to a NAB press release.

It says that the assets unearthed/recovered and seized are prize bonds and other financial instruments worth Rs40m, bank accounts revealing transactions inclu­ding cash deposits of Rs80m, two flats in Mirpurkhas worth Rs8m and Rs2m, respectively, a plot in Qasi­mabad worth Rs8m, two flats in Hyderabad worth Rs4m each, six flats in Shaheed Atiqullah Heights worth Rs60m and two vehicles worth Rs2.5 million.

The house raided by the NAB with the permission of a magistrate is located off Jail Road, within the jurisdiction of the Market police station, in Hyderabad.

A NAB official confirmed that Bachu Mal was arrested.

The NAB press release says that he had been serving as office superintendent (BPS-16) in the district education office. He was nominated in two cases of corruption registered against him by the Karachi NAB.

It said Mal was a key player in illegal appointments made in the Mirpurkhas education department.

“He had been defrauding applicants and job seekers by giving them away fake and bogus appointment orders,” it said, adding that his apartment in Hyderabad was worth Rs285 million.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2017