KARACHI: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Karachi on Thursday claimed to have recovered huge amount of cash and valuables from the custody of a personal secretary to the secretary of local government. The suspect was arrested from his office on Wednesday, said a NAB spokesperson.

On a lead of the accused, Ramzan Solangi, who was remanded in NAB custody on Thursday, a search operation was conducted at his residence in the Garden area, where he had confessed to having kept ill-gotten assets.

During the search operation, a NAB Karachi team recovered over Rs31.5m, including foreign currency, prize bonds worth Rs1,843,000, 100 tolas gold, gold ornaments, precious watches and other assets with certain documents, added the official.

During initial probe, it transpired that the suspect had been collecting millions of rupees as monthly bribes from various departmental heads.

Furthermore, the accused, Mr Solangi, has been running a gang of such individuals who are actively involved in working for influential persons for misappropriating funds of the local government department and their distribution.

Information gleaned from the suspect is likely to lead to the recovery of more valuables and arrests, said a NAB press release.

Suspect remanded in NAB custody

An accountability court on Thursday remanded Mr Solangi in custody of the National Accountability Bureau in the alleged graft case.

He was arrested on information provided by another suspect, Javed Qamar, the alleged frontman of a former district administrator.

The investigating officer produced the suspect before the administrative judge of the accountability courts and informed him that he collected monthly bribes from the district municipal councils, union councils and various local government entities. The IO asked for physical remand of the suspect to complete investigation.

Remanding him in NAB custody for one day, the court directed the IO to produce the suspect on next date of hearing with a report on progress in investigation.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2018