HYDERABAD: National Accounta-bility Bureau (NAB) filed a supplementary challan in Accountability Court-II on Thursday in a case of embezzlement of government funds released by National Highway Authority (NHA) for the acquisition of land for Sukkur-Hyderabad (M6) section of Motorway project.

The supplementary reference now also covers financial embezzlement in the land acquisition in Naushahro Feroze district. Earlier, the reference had covered only embezzlement in Matiari district in 2022.

According to this reference, the total number of accused has increased from 19 to 42 while total embezzled amount remained unchanged i.e. Rs5.8bn. It said that NAB had authorised inquiry on Nov 23, 2022, and it was upgraded to investigation on Dec 2, 2022.

Initially, after completion of investigation into misappropriation of funds in M6 section in Matiari, NAB had submitted reference against former deputy commissioner of Matiari Adnan Rashid, former AC Mansoor Abbasi and others. They were arrested along with others.

According to NAB prosecutor, Jangu Khan, names of 23 accused were mentioned in the Naushahro Feroze’s part of the case. They included ex-DC Tashfeen Alam Khan (resident of Hayatabad, Peshawar who had fled abroad), his wife Arfa Zia, Mukhtiar Ali Chandio, Sindh Bank Naushahro Feroze branch’s manager Atta Hussain Sahito, the bank’s operations manager, two former mukhtiarkars Shafiq Ahmed Soomro and Niaz Ali Ujjan, former PA to Naushahro Feroze DC Aziz Ansari and others, including private persons and retired revenue employees.

NAB merges references in Naushahro Feroze, Matiari M6 land acquisition, embezzlement sc

The reference approved by NAB’s director general Javed Akbar Riaz said that it transpired during the investigation that a certain set of main private accused involved in the embezzlement of funds was the same in both the districts of Matiari and Naushahro Feroze.

The M6 is a single project stretching from Hyderabad to Sukkur in which NHA funds have been embezzled by the same accused in connivance with government officials.

The inquiry into Naushahro Feroze land scam was merged with ongoing investigation of NAB and a consolidated single investigation into misappropriation of NHA funds meant for acquisition of land for M6 Motorway project was authorised on May 4, 2023.

It said the accused had embezzled Rs5.8bn in the two districts. The reference held ex-DC Tashfeen responsible for embezzlement, saying he being land acquisition officer (LAO) did not conduct proceedings under Sections 7, 8 and 9 of Land Acquisition Act (LAA) 1894.

The illegal and dummy award passed by him had been set aside by additional district judge of Naushahro Feroze on Dec 6, 2023. He did not maintain record of land acquisition as per legal procedure.

The NAB claimed that the former DC did not complete mandatory process of joint survey and did not deliberately obtain B-Forms from survey settlement department and passed the award illegally.

The reference holds former DC responsible for engaging private accused Rehmatullah Solangi, Asghar Jatoi, Ashique Hussain Kaleri, Zawar Shah and Tharo Khan for manoeuvring and misappropriating government funds for land acquisition in Naushahro Feroze through open/bearer cheques.

The DC was also accused of actively conniving with the accused and illegally withdrew Rs3.4bn from the account of LAO Naushahro Feroze in Sindh Bank.

He issued cheques for Rs456.268m to landowners whereas Rs2938.181m had been withdrawn and embezzled through 662 open cheques issued in the name of 79 persons who were not landowners.

He withdrew unauthorised payments of Rs2938.181m and embezzled them with other accused. He also issued cheques to dummy recipients to withdraw Rs2.9bn and embezzle it. The former DC established camp office at his house in revenue colony for manipulating the process of land acquisition, it said.

He transferred the embezzled amount to UAE/Dubai through channels of Hawala/Hundi where the accused purchased multiple properties including a villa. Rs636m were recovered from the accused, Ashiq Hussain Kaleri, who also purchased properties wroth Rs600m from the M6 funds, it said.

He confessed that he did it in connivance with the other accused. Rehmatullah Solangi bought properties worth Rs600m in his and co-accused names out of his share, it said.

The NAB said that the role of Tashfeen Alam, Arfa Zia, Rehmatullah Solangi and Asghar Jatoi should be further interrogated after their arrest or after their joining the investigation proceedings as an embezzled amount of more than Rs2bn was yet to be recovered from them. The court would indict the accused, now 42 in all, on Feb 3.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2024