Court sends former board secretary to jail
in corruption case until January 12
The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) raided the residence of the Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) controller of examinations on Thursday.
Imran Chishti’s house was raided over allegations of corruption and tampering with examination results, said police sources.
ACE Director Tariq Nizamani said the officials had raided the right house, but the target of their investigation was not at home at the time. “The search was legal and the police did their job properly.”
But the search party found no evidence relating to the accusations levelled against Chishti and the ACE team left without making an arrest. They completed their formal questioning from the other residents.
Nizamani said they had arrested former BIEK secretary Qazi Arshad a day earlier in relation to the same case. Arshad was accused of awarding better grades to certain intermediate candidates in exchange for bribes.
The ACE director said the police were hunting for all the people involved in the case. Chishti was also accused of taking bribes for tampering with the exam results and for selling top positions in the examinations. BIEK Chairman Akhtar Ghauri who is also a suspect in the same case has managed to abscond.
The government had opened an investigation a few months ago after an ACE team raided the board office, where they found the answer books of 98 candidates completely empty, yet they had somehow passed the exams with ‘A-1’ and ‘A’ grades.
After a thorough examination of the evidences, ACE had registered 64 FIRs against the students who were awarded marks through illegal means as well as against the BIEK employees who were involved in the incident. The department had also written to the board, requesting that they hand over complete data to them for a more thorough investigation.
The authorities had arrested a key official of the board, BIEK Deputy Controller of Examinations Dabeer Ahmed, in August last year.
According to the investigation reports, Ahmed had earned millions of rupees by illegally changing results of students.
Ex-BIEK secy remanded
An anti-corruption court has ordered sending Qazi Arshad to the Karachi Central Jail on a judicial remand until January 12 in a corruption case, adds our correspondent.
Arshad was arrested on Wednesday by the officials of ACE West Zone due to his alleged involvement in a huge corruption case.
The court was informed that Arshad was working as the audit deputy director at the DG Colleges office and had misappropriated millions of rupees while pretending to buy furniture for the colleges. He is also accused of appointing dozens of people against different posts in violation of rules and regulations.
The court directed the investigating officer to produce Arshad in court after expiration of his judicial remand period (January 12).
The court, however, fixed January 7 as the date to hear the bail plea of the accused, who requested the court to grant him interim bail.
The accused would be represented by his defence counsel regarding his interim bail plea.
