MULTAN: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) on Tuesday arrested three officers of the accounts department for their alleged involvement in the Rs230 million embezzlement case.

The ACE arrested former district accounts officer Basit Maqbool Hashmi, assistant accounts officer Muhammad Ali Jafari and Bahawalpur deputy district accounts officer Saeed Ahmad in connection with fraudulent withdrawal of amount from the accounts of Punjab Constabulary (PC).

Seven accused in the case have already been arrested out of whom six are PC employees, one is a private person while 15 suspects are on bail.

Meanwhile, three former and one incumbent Multan Battalion No 3 commanders, including SSP Mehmoodul Hassan, Muhammad Baqir, Pervaiz Khan Tareen and Mian Irfanullah were asked by investigation officer/ACE Assistant Director Adnan Asif Bhutta to appear before the [investigation] team on Nov 30; however only two officers appeared and recorded their statements.

Six constabulary staffers are among those already nabbed

Mr Hassan, the incumbent constabulary commander, in his written statement denied signing [as drawing and disbursing officer] salary bills that were submitted to the district accounts office for the [fraudulent] withdrawal of amount.

He said he had unearthed the scam and was the complainant in the case while adding that the document carrying his signatures should be sent for forensic test.

Mian Irfanullah, who now has retired from service, also denied any involvement in the embezzlement; however he said it might be possible that his signatures would have been got fraudulently. He also asked for forensic test of his signatures.

The other two officers, Mr Baqir and Mr Tareen, did not join the investigations and now would appear before the team tomorrow (Thursday). Mr Baqir is serving as DG Khan Punjab Highway Patrol SP while Pervaiz Tareen has retired from service.

A team of Accountant General Punjab had identified 92 fake transactions carrying scanned signatures of battalion commandant during the course of audit a couple of months back and initially the Rs3.4 million [embezzled] amount was calculated.

The ACE had lodged FIR on Aug 30 under Section 5 (2) 47 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections 461, 468, 471, 420, 467 and 409 of Pakistan Penal Code against 30 employees of the constabulary and the district accounts office on the complaint of Mr Hassan.

The complainant said the suspects prepared fake suspension and subsequent restoration orders of ghost PC employees and transferred salaries of those ‘employees’ to secret accounts by preparing bogus bills.

He said a fact-finding team had been constituted which found that secret bank accounts in the name of some employees of Battalion No 3 were opened with the connivance of district accounts office employees. Fake suspension and subsequent restoration orders of the employees were created by entering fictitious dates of suspension and restoration, and fake salary bills of the duration of suspension were [allegedly] prepared by clerk Abdul Jabbar Shah, junior clerks Azam and Rasheed Ahmad, naib qasid Munir, Sajjad Pittafi and Arshad.

Hassan said his signatures were forged on the salary bills that were submitted to the district accounts officer with the connivance of accounts staff.

He claimed that naib qasid Munir, who was in Saudi Arabia for Haj (now he is back), disclosed to him by phone that everything was done in connivance with [PC official] Azam Pittafi, district accounts officer-III Bashir Ahmed, senior auditor Mudassir Dareshak, auditor Tahir Bukhari, Shakeel and Adnan of the district accounts office, and the staff there were receiving their share.In the meanwhile, another team was sent by the AGP and during audit the number of fake transactions rose to 733 from 92 while the embezzled amount increased from Rs3.4m to Rs230m during the last five years.

During the ACE investigation, it was revealed that bank accounts of 91 people were used to withdraw the [embezzled] amount out of whom 70 were PC employees while the remaining were private persons.

Total number of the nominated accused is 105 out of whom 14 belong to district accounts office, including two district accounts officers namely Bashir Ahmad and Basit Maqbool Hashmi (former DAO), two senior accounts officers including Bukahri and Dareshak.

The ACE court has fixed Dec 6 (today) next date of the hearing.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2017