Five govt officers, contractors arrested

LAHORE - Punjab Police have arrested five government officers and contractors involved in misappropriation of crores of rupees through fake development projects in Faisalabad, says a handout issued here. They include ATO Iqbal Town, Faisalabad, Maqbool Saleemi, Sub Engineer, Khalid Mushtaq, Draftsman, Muham-mad Aslam and two other important characters involved in this fraud case Nasir Butt and Abdul Waheed contractors. Police are also conducting raids for nabbing two grade-18 officers including Tehsil Officer (Infrastructure) Muzammal Hussain and TMO Zafarullah. The arrests have been made on the special directives of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who has also directed the authorities concerned to conduct trial of the criminals on daily basis in special courts of anti-corruption for awarding deterrent punishment to the guilty persons. The chief minister has further directed that no leniency should be shown to the elements involved in the plunder of national exchequer. According to details, administration of Iqbal Town, Faisalabad, had awarded contracts of 11 development schemes to Nasir Butt and Abdul Waheed in the beginning of December last year. After the issuance of work order payments to the contractors were made by District Accounts Office, Faisalabad, within eight days. According to facts out of these 11 development schemes four development schemes are non-existent. Similarly, the remaining seven schemes were only partially executed but full payment had been made to both the contractors. In order to conceal their crime, the accused managed to get the files of five years record vanished and fled from Faisalabad after the detection of the crime. The criminals during this period remained in hiding in Rawalpindi, Murree, Haripur and Rawlakot. Meanwhile, action has also been initiated for the confiscation of property purchased by the accused through their ill-gotten wealth in various cities while court is being approached for freezing of their accounts in different banks.