NAB takes Mirpurkhas education official into custody

Maheshwari is accused of accumulating wealth beyond his known source of income

HYDERABAD: A National Accountability Bureau (NAB) team arrested an education official after the Sindh High Court denied him bail in Hyderabad on Wednesday. Bachu Mal Maheshwari, who was earlier arrested during a raid by NAB at his residence on March 10 this year, is accused of accumulating wealth beyond his known source of income.

According to NAB's Spokesperson and Deputy Director Rizwan Soomro, the accused was an office superintendent in the education department in Mirpurkhas district. Maheshwari has been charged in the NAB reference with fraud, corrupt practices and corruption in various appointments in the department.



Several financial instruments, papers of properties, vehicles and banking transactions, all worth around Rs285 million were allegedly recovered from his residence during the March 10 raid, the spokesperson claimed.

"The accused was a key player in the illegal appointments in the Mirpurkhas district education department. He has been defrauding the poor applicants and job seekers by giving them fake appointment orders," read a statement issued by NAB after the raid.



Maheshwari is also booked in another NAB reference filed on May, 2016, in which 22 education officials and staff from Mirpurkhas were nominated. In that reference, Maheshwari is accused of releasing Rs97 million under fake salaries disbursed against 164 fake appointments. He prevented earlier attempts of the bureau for his arrest by obtaining a pre-arrest bail from SHC.

Recoveries made from his residence include Rs40 million worth of prize bonds, documents of 11 apartments in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas, a plot in Hyderabad and two vehicles valued at Rs2.5 million. The combined worth of his property is estimated to be Rs90 million. Another Rs80 million worth of bank transactions in the bank accounts have also been detected.