NAB nabs five people over Rs76m scam

CHIITRAL-The National Accountability Bureau (NAB)’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter arrested APML Chitral district president Khalid Pervez and four others for their alleged involvement in the embezzlement of Rs76 million forest royalty.
NAB officials said that its KP chapter arrested Gulzarur Rehman, former divisional forest officer Chitral and currently working as an assistant professor at the Forest College, Peshawar; Prince Khalid Pervez, Noor Shahideen Kalash, subadar (r) Rehmat Karim and Malak Shaye Kalash.
It said that the bureau arrested them for allegedly depriving the concessionaires of the forest royalty amounting to Rs76 million.
“On the complaint of poor concessionaires of a locality from Chitral, the NAB KP initiated an inquiry which revealed that Noor Shahideen made a fake joint forest management committee (JFMC) and fraudulently made himself chairman through the active connivance of other accused persons,” the officials said.
The fake JFMC was fully supported by then DFO Gulzar Rehman and was approved without any proper investigation and verification. As per the policy of Forest Department /government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the forest royalty shall be distributed to the concessionaires (royalty holders) of the locality equally, they said.
The accused persons later diverted and embezzled an amount of Rs76 million through complex banking transactions and pocketed the amount, they alleged.
An official of NAB said NAB KP was actively perusing the case, adding that the accused would be produced before an accountability court in Peshawar for obtaining their physical remand. Meanwhile, social and political circle of Chitral highly appreciated the NAB for the step.