QUETTA: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested on Friday Balochis­tan’s Secretary of Finance Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani from his residence on corruption charges and seized over Rs600 million currency, jewellery and some important documents.

Official sources said that a special team of NAB raided the official residence of Mr Raisani in the GOR Colony and arrested him. NAB also raided his office in the Balochistan Secretariat and took some important documents into its custody besides sealing his office and other rooms of the secretariat.

“More officials of the finance and local government departments are likely to be arrested in connection with the corruption case,” a senior official of NAB (Balochistan) told Dawn.

More officials of finance and local govt departments likely to be arrested, says NAB

Official sources said that NAB had been investigating Mr Raisani’s case since 2013 in connection with alleged embezzlement of over Rs1.5 billion of local government funds and funds of Special Provi­ncial Development Pro­gra­mme for financial year 2013-14 and 2014-15.

The sources said that three teams of NAB had been constituted by authorities concerned. One team raided Mr Raisani’s residence and took him into custody when he was about to leave for the office.

Another team raided his office in the Balochistan Sec­retariat and the third team went to his home in search of the allegedly embezzled money, other valuables and relevant documents.

NAB officials claimed that during the search of Mr Raisani’s residence, 12 bags full of currency had been re­co­vered besides gold ornaments worth over Rs10m.

“The NAB team spent around seven hours at the residence of the finance secretary and recovered over Rs600m stuffed in 12 bags,” the NAB official said, adding that Saudi riyals, US dollars and pounds were also inclu­ded in the recovered money.

The team also recovered currency notes counting machines during the raid.

“Counting of the recovered amount has not been completed so far,” NAB officials said, adding that over Rs600m currency notes had been be counted so far and the recovered amount might be over Rs600m.

“Over Rs15m was recovered from the bumper of a vehicle parked at his residence when the raiding team checked the chassis number of the vehicle,” a source told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2016