LAHORE, April 3: The National Accountability Bureau, Punjab, has arrested two former officials of the disbursement section of the Controller of Military Accounts, Defence Purchases (CMA-DP), Rawalpindi, for their alleged fraudulent withdrawal and misappropriation of Rs66.55 million from the official accounts.

Former accounts officer Mazhar Aslam being the supervisor of disbursement section was responsible for safe custody and proper use of cheques and stamps and monitoring of all payments from his section. Typist/junior auditor Tanveer Azam was responsible for typing all the cheques that were to be put up to the accounts officer for approval.

Both the accused in connivance with each other not only supplied cheques worth Rs55.66 million to Saeed Ahmad with initials and stamps of CMA-DP, but also forged more cheques and willfully failed to maintain the official record in accordance with the prescribed procedures as a post-fraud cover up.

Both the accused were compulsorily retired by the military accountant general on being found guilty of corruption and misconduct in departmental inquiries.

The defence secretary dismissed their appeals. NAB has arrested them for providing a clue to principal accused Saeed Ahmad and recovery of the misappropriated funds.