LARKANA: Four suspects, currently at large on bail in fake bank account cases, appeared before reporters at the local press club on Tuesday claiming that they had nothing to do with the accounts allegedly opened in their name clandestinely for certain heavy transactions.

“We came to know about the accounts only on Oct 28 when a team of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) raided our houses in their investigation into Rs90 million transactions through these accounts, which we have never opened or maintained,” Zulfikar Ali Shaikh, Khalid Hussain Shaikh, Rizwan Ali Shaikh and Ghulam Ali Jakhar said.

They said they came to know that their data submitted for opening the accounts showed them as government ‘contractors’. “Though we are currently self-employed, we had once submitted photocopies of our academic certificates and computerised national identity cards (CNICs) with the deputy accounts officer and cashier of the Bakrani taluka municipal committee in 2012-13 to seek employment. They said they did not get any job against the applications.

“We believe that the officer and cashier may have misused our documents in the opening of these accounts in three different banks,” they said.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2018