A 21-grade officer and Sindh secretary for human rights, Dr Badar Jamil Mandhro, who is reportedly facing a corruption case, has returned home after 'going missing' in Karachi on Friday.

Ferozabad Station House Officer Aurangzeb Khattak told Dawn on Sunday that the senior officer’s wife informed the police that her husband returned home early in the morning.

Karachi Police Chief Additional Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon told Dawn that the officer was avoiding a meeting with the police.

The officer said that investigators tried to meet and record Mandhro's statement earlier today but the family told the police that he was not feeling well, adding that the police will try to interview the bureaucrat again on Monday.

He further said that the family had not lodged any formal complaint with the police about his disappearance.

On Saturday, DIG South Sharjeel Kharal told Dawn that Mandhro reportedly made telephone contact with his wife at around 2:30am on the night between Friday and Saturday and told her that he was in Defence Housing Authority.

The DIG said that the police came to know about his disappearance on Saturday and they used technology to trace him. His mobile phone was traced to Nazimabad before being switched off there at around 4am.

Embezzlement charges

A source at Chief Minister House said that the ACE has submitted its report to Shah, stating that they have not arrested the provincial secretary.

Dr Mandhro was facing charges of embezzlement of funds meant for uplift schemes as tenders for such schemes were allegedly given to ‘blue-eyed contractors’. At the time, Mandhro was the director general of the Karachi Development Authority.

In the same case, ACE officials were quoted by media as saying that the provincial secretary had already obtained bail before arrest from the anti-corruption court recently.

A source in the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had told Dawn that Mandhro was arrested by the anti-graft body in the past over charges of illegal recruitments in the minorities department when he was its secretary a few years ago.

However, the NAB source said that when they filed a reference against him, Mandhro moved an application before the accountability court under Section 265-K of the Code of Criminal Procedure, contending that he had no role in the said illegal recruitments. The court had subsequently acquitted him.

The NAB source added that he was unaware if any inquiry was pending against the senior bureaucrat on charges of possessing assets beyond means.