KARACHI: An accountability court on Thursday issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of six suspects, including a former inspector general of Sindh police, allegedly absconding in a corruption case.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a fresh reference and nominated over 15 police officers — including former provincial police officer Ghulam Haider Jamali, former assistant IG (finance) Syed Fida Hussain Shah, AIG (Logistics) Tanveer Ahmed Tahir, former AIG (Logistics) Faisal Bashir Memon and others — for alleged corruption in the funds of the Sindh police.

The federal anti-graft watchdog maintained that an inquiry was authorised on the basis of complaints lodged by the Collector General of Accounts (CGA) Pakistan and Transparency International Pakistan.

During the inquiry it was established that an amount of Rs100 on monthly basis was deducted at source from salaries of police officials/officers, etc, from constables to the inspector general of police of Sindh by the Accountant General of Sindh and transferred to the account of the IGP Sindh titled as “feeding charges police department” for onward transmission in the police units for feeding the personnel during extraordinary duties.

“Instead of transferring these funds to police units, the same were withdrawn from this account through bearer cheques and subsequently embezzled,” it alleged adding that four police officers — former AIG Tanveer Hussain Tahir, former AIG Syed Fida Hussain Shah, former AIG Kamran Rashid and former AIG Faisal Bashir Memon — signed the cheques, illegally withdrew the feeding charges through bearer or open cheques and aided, abetted, assisted and acted in conspiracy with former IG Ghulam Haider Jamali.

The watchdog claimed that these officers misappropriated the funds of feeding charges amounting to Rs47,253,242 and filed a reference against them along with others.

Accepting the reference, the accountability court concerned issued non-bailable warrants for arrest of the former police officers allegedly absconding in the case and directed the investigating officer to arrest them and produce before the court on Sept 11.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2018