PESHAWAR, Aug 27: The National Accountability Bureau, NWFP, has filed a reference in the accountability court against 13 people, charging them with inflicting a loss of Rs56.577 million to the exchequer through illegal cutting of trees in the Hazara tribal forest division.

According to the NAB, the accused, including four employees of the forest department and a tehsil nazim, had managed to admix a large volume of illegally-cut timber with genuine timber of joint forest management committees (JFMCs).

The timber was stocked at depots located in remote areas of the Pashto Union Council of the Allai tehsil in the Battagram district.

The accused charged in the reference are: range forest officer Zia Mohammad, forester Mohammad Maqbool, forest guards Mohammad Anwer and Qari Ahmad Rizwan, chairmen of JFMCs Gul Sanoobar, Abdul Wadood, Talezar, Miandad and Umraz, forest contractors Khanzada Zafar Ali Khan, who is also nazim of the Battagram tehsil, Gul Faraz, Qasim Khan and Ghulam Haider of the Pashto forest range of the Hazara tribal forest division.

The NAB claimed that to ascertain the exact volume of the illegally-cut timber, a technical committee was constituted for carrying out detailed measurement of depots.

Owing to the large volume of timber it took six months for the technical committee to complete the measurement process.

The timber was later on transported to the sale depot in Havelian with the assistance of the Forest Development Corporation.

The NAB alleged that the evidence collected during the investigation had established that the accused had fraudulently admixed 110,202 cubic feet illegal timber with genuine timber.