KARACHI, March 27: A senior cashier of the Allied Bank Limited (ABL) was sentenced on Monday to suffer a 12-year term each in two fraud cases by the special court for offences in banks.

Judge Qamaruddin Bohra also imposed fines of Rs13.45 million and Rs152,000 on Zulfiqar Ali Shar, who was convicted under Section 409 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the prosecution, represented by public prosecutor Khalique Ahmed of the National Accountability Bureau, the cashier was posted in the Khipro bus stand Mirpurkhas branch. On May 4, 2001 he released cash of Rs900,000 in transit voucher, which was to be deposited with the main branch of the bank.

However, he did not deposit the amount with the main branch. The shortage of the money surfaced when the new cashier took the charge. The bank management managed to recover the misappropriated amount from Zulfiqar Ali in case.

Later during the course of investigation by the bank management, it was discovered that the cashier debited and withdrew Rs4.8 million from the account of a cotton ginning and pressing factory. It was further detected that a sum of Rs1 million was also misappropriated from the same account by the accused. Moreover, he was found guilty of having misappropriated Rs1.62 million from another account.

The judge sentenced the cashier to a seven-year term and imposed a fine of Rs13.54 million on him. The judge also ordered that in default on the payment, the convict would have to undergo an additional simple imprisonment for 21 months. Another five-year term was handed down to him under Section 477-A of the PPC.