LAHORE: A special court (offence in bank) has summoned various officials of a private bank to face trial in a millions of rupees “parallel banking” scam.

The suspects include branch manager Syed Kashif Naqvi, manager banking services Ms Nazeer Sadiq Khan, regional head Muhammad Ali, audit team leader Muhammad Mudassar, cashiers Nauman Shah and Faisal Mahmood.

Presiding judge Aslam Gondal passed the order allowing a private complaint filed by Hassan Sultan Khan and others accusing the bank officials of depriving them of their deposits of millions of rupees by running a parallel banking network.

Complainants’ counsel Ijaz Awan argued that his clients had been defrauded in a very carefully crafted manner by the officials of the Allied Bank Limited, Faisal Town branch, Lahore. He said the suspects embezzled millions of rupees by not depositing the amount of the complainants in the bank account of their company against the deposit slips.

He argued that the suspects were liable to be awarded exemplary punishment to curb fraudulent misdeeds in the financial institutions.

The judge in his verdict observed that the allegations against the six suspects prima facie made offences under the law and summoned them for Nov 6 to face the trial.

The judge, however, dismissed the complaint to the extent of 14 other bank officials as no sufficient material was found on record to connect them with the commission of crime.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2021