GUJRAT: The case of Rs93m corruption in Gujrat Municipal Corporation (GtMC) has been transferred to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Gujranwala from the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) as per the court directions.

An ACE team presented two recently arrested officials of Bank of Punjab (BoP), Malik Irfan and Suleman Haider, before the anti-corruption special judge and sought their physical remand on Friday. However, agreeing with the arguments of Zakaullah Sohi, the counsel for the accused, the judge observed that due to the nomination of bankers in the ACE case, the matter had now gone into jurisdictions of the FIA. He ordered the transfer of the case to the FIA.

The accused were later handed over to the FIA on transit remand of a single day and they were again produced by the FIA before the court of duty magistrate Sajjad Arain on Saturday.

The court handed over their custody to the FIA on four days physical.

The ACE had initially booked eight officials of Gujrat MC, including former chief officer Malik Ibrar, finance officer Rauf Ashraf Warraich, auditor and others on charges of plundering Rs40m from the MC on Nov 8; however, during the course of investigation, the volume of corruption amount soared to Rs93.6m.

Three of the nominated accused are in jail, three others are on interim bail while one Majid Rasheed, a data entry operator, had fled the country.

Talking to Dawn, Malik Ibrar denied the charge of corruption levelled against him, saying he had resisted the corrupt practices at Gujrat MC where lower staff had become a strong mafia. He said three cheques had been cashed through fake signatures during his tenure.

On the other hand, the local government department, through a notification, handed over the additional charge of municipal officer finance of Gujrat District Council as well as Gujrat Municipal Corporation to Fiaz Ahmed, the municipal officer finance Sambrial Municipal Committee. Both posts were lying vacant after the arrest of finance officer Rauf Ashraf Warraich. In his absence, Gujrat MC was facing a serious crisis as the civic agency could not pay the salaries of MC staff in the current month and the Gujranwala Electric Power Company (Gepco) had also issued the disconnection notice to the GtMC for failure to pay the dues of Rs70m.

Sources said the post of Gujrat MC chief officer had been awaiting posting of a regular staffer as municipal officer regulations Khalid Daad Gara was working as chief officer MC on an additional charge basis for the last four months.

ARRESTED: The FIA claimed to have busted a gang involved in running illegal currency exchange in Gujranwala and Lahore.

A spokesman for the FIA said a team intercepted a vehicle and arrested Imran Habib, son of Habibullah, and Muhammad Abbas, son of Muhammad Niyaz, both residents of Gujranwala.

The spokesman said the suspects were involved in illegal business of foreign exchange and transportation of foreign currency in Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Lahore, Gujrat, Mandi Bahaudin and Gujjar Khan. The agency seized 110,000 Euros, mobile phones and receipts against different buyers from them and registered a case.

The FIA also arrested two human traffickers from Sambrial and Sargodha. The suspects were identified as Idrees Khan of Sialkot and Malik Fahad of Sargodha.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2024