Two officials jailed for12 years in corruption case
QUETTA: An accountability court on Tuesday sentenced Assistant Food Director Saeed Ahmed Mengal and Assistant Food Controller Ameer Bakhsh Khosa to a total of 12 years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs100 million for causing a loss of millions to the national exchequer.
Judge Allah Dad Roshan of the accountability court pronounced the verdict on Tuesday in the light of investigation carried out and evidence collected against the officials by the National Accountability Bureau’s Balochistan chapter.
According to NAB investigations, Assistant Director Mengal, as the project director of Jaffarabad district, Nasserabad and Jhal Magsi, purchased thousands of wheat bags from various provincial reserve centres (PRCs) only on paper.
Records and field visits to the food department warehouse by the investigators revealed that the officials, Mengal and Khosa, neither purchased wheat bags from PRCs nor deposited them in the food department’s warehouse, causing millions of rupees loss to the national exchequer.
Meanwhile, a man was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in a bank fraud case on Tuesday.
Judge Munir Ahmed Marri of the Banking Court, Quetta, also imposed a fine of Rs4.76 million on the convict.
The case was lodged against Sameer Ahmed on a complaint by a branch manager of the National Bank for presenting scanned cheques of an account holder, Ehsanullah.
The cheques for Rs2.51m and Rs2.25m had been used in 2014 and 2018 respectively.
The cheques went to MCB’s Qila Saifullah branch for clearance in favour of Sameer Ahmed, who deceitfully and fraudulently got them cleared.
However, when he presented yet another scanned cheque for Rs2.55m of the account holder, Ehsanullah, he was arrested and the bank filed a complaint against him.
The banking circle of Federal Investigation Agency registered the case and an FIA official, Arif Baloch, conducted investigation and submitted the challan in the court.
Assistant Director (Legal) Taimoor Shah Kakar represented the FIA in the trial court.
Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2021
