GUJRANWALA, March 7: Influential people and business concerns involved in the sales tax evasion and fake rebate claims have got transferred a senior sales tax official probing the case, it is learnt.

Official sources said that a sales tax deputy collector posted here had detected tax evasion and fake rebate claims worth millions. They said that the owner of four companies of Sialkot and their adviser who were involved in the scam were arrested and criminal cases registered against them some two weeks ago. “As more companies of Sialkot and Gujranwala were uneasy at the widening scope of the scam, they used their contacts at the top and got the deputy collector transferred from Gujranwala to Gujrat, giving a message to other staff that have to come to terms with them.

Meanwhile, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has reportedly sought the record of the case from the sales tax collectorate.

ARRESTED: A property transfer fee contractor was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Establishment for overcharging while his companions managed to escape here on Tuesday.

Reports said that on the complaint of a citizen, ACE deputy director Tasir Ahmed and special judicial magistrate Abdul Ghafoor got conducted a raid on the offices of contractor Nadim Khan whose staff was found charging Rs 1,600 instead of the scheduled rate of Rs900.

NO FLU: A seminar rejected the presence of bird flu virus and suggested constitution of vigilant and scrutiny committees at district level to survey poultry farms.

The seminar was organised by the livestock department and attended by, among others, Punjab livestock secretary Babar Yaqoob.

Participants were told that as many as 4,500 poultry farms survey recently across the province were free from bird flu.