The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested seven officials of the provincial revenue department for embezzlement and illegal land transfers.
A spokesman for the bureau’s Sindh chapter said on Friday that the seven accused were arrested upon cancellation of ad-interim bails by the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s principal bench in Islamabad.
The seven revenue officials are charged with illegal transfer of precious government land on the basis of fake and fabricated documents in Deh Rehri, Bin Qasim Town, District Malir, Karachi. The charges include inserting fake entries in the name of non-existing individuals and subsequent transfer in the name of private individuals.
The land in question is 77 acres and worth Rs385 million. A reference over the matter had already been filed against 12 accused. Two of the accused are already in judicial custody and the seven now arrested were identified as Allah Bachayo Chandio, ex-DO revenue; Shoukat Hussain Jokhio, ex-DDO revenue, Bin Qasim Town; Ali Akbar Hingoro, ex-DO revenue; Sabir Hussain, ex-assistant mukhtiarkar, Bin Qasim Town; Ali Sher Mirani, ex-mukhtiarkar, Bin Qasim Town; Nazir Ameen Maqbool, ex-mukhtiarkar; and Nazir Ahmed Malkani, a beneficiary of the illegal land transfer.
While the bureau did not specifically mention where the seven men were arrested, the spokesman said they would be transferred to Karachi after completion of legal formalities and produced before an accountability court.
A few days prior, on Wednesday, NAB had arrested a FBR official over charges of involvement in illegal sales tax refunds. Rauf Abdul Nasir, deputy commissioner of the Regional Tax office-III, Karachi, was arrested in the Tharparkar district and is charged with illegally sanctioning sales tax refunds to business firms which never existed.