An Agriculture Department officer was arrested on Tuesday for accepting a bribe. Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) officials said they recovered marked currency from him.
The action was taken on the application of Muhammad Afzal, a dealer in fertilisers in Wahndu. In his application submitted to the ACE Director Yawar Hussain, Afzal said that Kamonke Deputy District Officer Zafar Iqbal had been harassing him and demanding thousands of rupees every time he visited his office for work. He said that Iqbal had extorted thousands of rupees from him. He said last week, Iqbal demanded Rs110,000 from him.
Afzal informed the ACE director, who directed a team to investigate the case. The team was supervised by an area magistrate. When Afzal gave Iqbal the money, the ACE officials had marked, the office was raided and Iqbal was arrested. Inspector (headquarters) Nazia Sindhu said that the accused had apparently been threatening to accuse the complainant of selling fake fertilisers if he was not bribed. Iqbal claimed that he had fined Afzal for selling fake fertilisers a few days ago and that was why he had filed a complaint against him.
Inspector Sindhu said samples from festilisers provided by Afzal had been sent for test.
Separately on Tuesday, ACE officials registered a case against former Hafizabad DHQ hospital medical superintendent Dr Muhammad Aslam and senior clerk Zulfiqar Ali on charges of alleged fraud. No arrests have been made yet.
Dr Aslam is accused of embezzling huge amount of government funds that he had received to set up a canteen and parking stand at the hospital during his tenure. Ali is accused of helping Dr Aslam in this. The two also allegedly received Rs5,000 per month from the contractor as parking fee, which was never deposited in a government account.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2013.