PESHAWAR: An accountability court on Monday convicted a former senior postmaster, Allauddin Khan, for misappropriating military pensions and sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs16.708 million.

Accountability judge Kulsoom Azam ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against the accused.

The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had received a complaint a few years ago regarding fraudulent military pension payment orders in Jandola, Tank and other post offices.

Afterwards, NAB initiated an investigation, which unearthed the whole scam of illegal pension payments.

Later, a reference was filed in the court against the accused person.

A clerk, Shahnawaz, was also arrested in the same case, but he died in the Peshawar Central Prison on Nov 16, 2012.

Earlier, an accountability court had convicted the prime accused in Oct 2017 for the same offence, and sentenced him to three years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs10.57 million. However, on an appeal the Peshawar High Court had remanded the case back to the accountability court on some technical grounds.

As the convict was earlier released on bail, he was taken into custody after the fresh judgment was pronounced.

NAB prosecutor Habibullah Baig contended that the accused in league with others had withdrawn millions of rupees from public exchequer under the garb of arrears of around 545 pensioners in 2011.

He contended that the evidence on record clearly proved the guilt of the accused.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2020