BAHAWALNAGAR: A tehsildar who is on bail in a bribe case has been reinstated to the office, while the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) circle officer (CO) who raided and arrested him is facing action for “fake raids”.

A case was registered against Tehsildar Zaffar Mughal by ACE CO Irfan Akbar Khan on Dec 6, 2021, at the Bahawalnagar ACE police station for receiving a bribe in a case. The case story is that Ali Khan approached the ACE against Patwari Gulab Ali for fraudulently selling the government’s land after getting a bribe. The inquiry of the case was marked to the tehsildar, who demanded Rs200,000 from the applicant to favour him and received Rs100,000. The ACE team along with Magistrate Ayaz Rafique caught the tehsildar red-handed with the tainted notes of Rs50,000. On Dec 8, the Board of Revenue (BoR) suspended the tehsildar from service, and the same day his pre-arrest bail was dismissed by the ACC, Multan.

Things, however, took twists when the same day, the Bahawalnagar deputy commissioner (DC) declared the case fake in his report and forwarded it to the commissioner of Bahawalpur and the ACE director general (DG), the district and session judge of Bahawalnagar and the BoR, Punjab. The report said that the motive behind the raid was to pressurise the patwari, who was an eyewitness in a NAB case against the complainant’s father. The report says contrary to the written statement of the magistrate, the CO added a sentence in the FIR that the tehsildar was caught red-handed.

The DC report also accused the ACE office of creating a harassing, embarrassing and unsafe atmosphere for honest and diligent officials by conducting raids on fake complaints of this notorious family for years and asked the authorities for necessary action.

However, ACE court dismissed the bail plea of the tehsildar on Dec 15 and said that there was no ill-will to falsely involve the petitioner in the case and that there were already 10 cases ongoing against him.

But the S&GAD (Establishment Wing) Punjab directed the DG Office to repatriate CO Akbar to his parent department. The ACE director general issued a clarification letter regarding the 10 cases on Dec 31. The tehsildar got his bail confirmed from the High Court (Bahawalpur Bench) the same day.

It seems the tehsildar knew that he would defeat the case.

He claimed in a video statement that the ACE director-general had agreed to his point of view of the ACE raid being bogus and that the CO would face action.

His claim became true on Jan 7 when the CO was moved to his parental department (Punjab Police) and the tehsildar was reinstated to service with effect from his date of arrest.

What makes the case suspicious is, sources say, why the ACE Multan did not arrest the tehsildar for a month when his bail was rejected by the ACE court.

CO Akbar calls the DC’s report worthless and said that the ACC Bahawalpur’s decision had countered the allegations levelled by the DC in his report.

Tehsildar Mughal told Dawn that the acceptance of his bail plea by the High Court (Bahawalpur Bench) was proof of his innocence. He said that not only the DC but the commissioner office and intelligence agencies had also declared the CO guilty in their reports.

He alleged that the CO trapped him after getting bribes. He added that if the raid was genuine then the ACE CO should appeal against the high court’s decision. The DC refused to comment.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2022