Hot waters: Forest Dept official arrested for embezzling funds

MULTAN/ FAISALABAD:

The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has arrested the Faisalabad Forests Department deputy district officer for corruption and misappropriation of official money.

An ACE spokesperson said on Wednesday that Deputy District Officer Rana Amjad Ali had been accused of embezzling close to Rs99.5 million. He said the ACE regional police station had earlier registered a case against Ali, but he had obtained pre-arrest bail from a court. Lahore High Court later turned down his application for confirmation of bail. Anti-Corruption Investigation Assistant Director Zahid Masood Nizami led a team of officials to Ali’s house and arrested him. The spokesperson said that Ali was incarcerated at the Civil Lines police station and further investigation is underway.

Timber theft

Officials of the Multan Forest Department and district police conducted various raids this week and arrested 18 people in Khanewal for stealing timber.

Divisional Forest Officer Gulzar Liaquat said the men had been chopping trees from Pirowal Forest for quite some time. “They have inflicted a loss of millions of rupees for several years,” he said.

He said that they had filed several complaints in the past few years but the timber mafia had eluded arrest every time.

Hammad Raza, a sub-divisional officer at the Forest Department, led a team of cops and department officials and raided several areas in the forest and in Khanewal district. He said they had managed to arrest 18 people for timber theft.

Liaquat said a powerful timber mafia has been causing much damage to the forest. “We have revamped our security arrangements in light of rampant timber theft at Pirowal Forest,” he said.

Some officials of the Forest Department requesting anonymity said that the arrests came after some members of the mafia had abducted SDO Hammad Raza a few days ago and had beaten him up. They said that they had threatened Raza not to pursue them.

Pirowal Forest covers 7,500 acres and is considered of the largest forests in south Punjab.

It was notified as a forest in the early 1900s. The Pirowal Wildlife Park and Forest was established in 1987-1990 under the development scheme Improvement of Wildlife through Development of Habitat in Irrigated Forest Plantations in the Punjab. The Wildlife Park had been developed at a cost of Rs5.912 million.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2016.