KARACHI: A senior government official who went missing in the city on Saturday, returned home safely on Sunday morning.

According to police, Sindh Human Rights Secretary Badar Jamil Mandhro, who is reportedly facing a corruption case, left his home on Friday morning for office at the Sindh Secretariat, but did not return home on Saturday evening.

Ferozabad SHO Aurangzeb Khattak told Dawn on Sunday that the senior officer’s wife informed the police that her husband had returned home in Block-3 of PECHS near Imtiaz Superstore early on Sunday morning.

City police chief Additional IGP Karachi Ghulam Nabi Memon told Dawn that the officer was still avoiding meeting the police.

Investigators say they tried to meet and record his statement, but his family told them he was not well

Investigators said they tried on Sunday to meet and record his statement, but the family told the police that he was not feeling well.

The city police chief said that the police would try again on Monday to record his statement.

Mr Memon disclosed that the family had not lodged any formal complaint with the police about his disappearance.

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

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

Recently the Anti-Corruption Establishment had registered an FIR (2/2020) against Badar Jamil, LG secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh and others on charges of embezzlement of Rs800 million of uplift schemes. Mr Jamil, who was at that time director general of the Karachi Development Authority, has got pre-arrest bail from court.

According to the contents of the FIR obtained by Dawn on Sunday, the work on the schemes was based on “forged/bogus” documents and even the tenders issued in the newspapers were “fake”.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2020