MUZAFFARABAD, June 24: The AJK Ehtesab Bureau faced an embarrassing situation on Thursday after one of its prosecuting attorneys levelled serious allegations against two other officials and announced that he was disassociating himself from the institution.

"The Ehtesab Bureau has been turned by the Sudhan tribe into (an) employment bureau and officials (belonging to) the tribe are using their positions to save their kinsmen (biradri) from the accountability net," said Shaikh Masood Iqbal, deputy chief prosecutor in a statement.

He was particularly critical about the bureau's spokesman, Asrar Ayub, and another employee, Tahir Azeem, alleging that they were "totally ignorant" about legal matters, adding that they had gotten published misleading statements against him in the press.

The controversy had been brewing in the bureau for quite some time, especially in the wake of the deputy chief prosecutor's statement before a high court judge on June 8 in a pre-arrest bail petition filed by Shahzad Khalid, son of the Legislative Assembly Speaker Sardar Siab Khalid.

The application was dismissed by the judge as premature and infructuous in view of the deputy chief prosecutor's statement that "at present, the bureau had no case against the petitioner."

Soon after the court's decision, the speaker addressed a press conference and took strong exception to the bureau. He said the DCP's statement had proven that the bureau was disrespecting and disgracing the respectable citizens.

The speaker had alleged that a bureau official (Asrar Ayub) was trying to settle score with him on account of political differences. To counter the speaker's press conference, a press release issued on behalf of Ehtesab Bureau chairman Maj-Gen (retd) Sarfraz Iqbal had stated that the deputy chief prosecutor could not "properly elucidate the actual situation in the court and appropriate steps were being taken in this regard."

That press release was issued by Mr Azeem as acting spokesman of the bureau. In the meanwhile, the DCP was also served a show-cause notice by the Ehtesab Bureau chairman allegedly for not properly pleading the viewpoint of his institution in the court.

However, in his statement, the DCP asserted that he had not given any wrong statement in the court but had only informed the court about the actual situation because neither there was any arrest warrant against the accused (Mr Shahzad) nor the investigation was complete.

"If incomplete record had been presented before the court without investigation and a warrant, the court would have confirmed his pre-arrest bail, whereas his application was dismissed by the court," he added.

He said that the rejection of the bail application had not gone well with the relatives of the accused in the Ehtesab Bureau, adding that they had resorted to a baseless propaganda campaign against him.

The DCP also alleged that the bureau's chairman had been diverted from the institutions' main objectives by what he termed a group of sycophants and flatters. "The bureau could have taken the accused (Mr Shahzad) into custody had it completed the investigation and issued arrest warrant against him.

But the arrest warrant was not issued because relatives of the accused hold key positions in the bureau," he said. "Given the circumstances, I cannot become a part of this corruption and plunder and have, therefore, decided to disassociate myself from the bureau."