PESHAWAR, Jan 12: A former land acquisition collector of National Highway Authority, Nazir Ahmad, was arrested on the orders of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) here on Friday night.

The accused, presently serving as reader of Senior Member Board of Revenue, NWFP, was produced before an accountability court presided over by Said Maroof Khan on Saturday, which remanded him in the custody of NAB for 14 days.

The NWFP NAB office has claimed that through his acts the accused had caused a loss of Rs 47.48 million to the national exchequer. The NAB alleged that the accused had enhanced rates of land acquired in disregard of “Yaksala” in different projects.

He is accused of abusing power such as making payments far in excess of power vested in him and without approval of the competent authority. One of the charges against him is reclassifying land and property in a deceitful manner and fixing prices with vested interests, accordingly for granting undue financial favour at the cost of the exchequer. The NAB claimed that those who were illegally favoured by the accused had also been identified. —Bureau Report