School fee hike: FIA conducting forensic audit of computers seized during raids

The computers were taken from several private schools on the orders of the apex court

KARACHI: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said that computers seized from private schools for the inspection of unduly fee collections have been sent for forensic audit to the National Response Center for Cybercrimes (NR3C).

The FIA has also started carrying out a forensic audit of fee registers and bank accounts of the schools' owners and administrations.

Following the apex court's orders on December 13, the FIA headquarters had sent a memorandum to all zonal directors, directing them to seize the records of all listed private schools and freeze their accounts. The FIA teams were also instructed to freeze the personal bank accounts of the schools' owners. Later, the teams were directed not to freeze the accounts until the forensic audit was completed. As per the memo, the FIA was also directed to complete the forensic audit report of the records within 15 days. Acting on the directions, FIA teams raided several campuses of private schools on Friday and took all their records into custody.

The FIA has now sent the computers seized during the raids for inspection at the forensic lab section of its cybercrime wing. The investigation officers will also formally present forensic audit reports of the bank accounts on December 24. As per the list, records of City School, City School Systems, Beaconhouse School Systems, Generation School, Bay View Academy, Lahore Grammar School, Roots School System, Roots Millennium Schools, Learning Alliance, Lahore College of Arts, Froebels Education Center, Head Start School, Resource Academia, Salamat School Systems, Alliance Resources, Civilizations School, The Learning Tree School, City Public School and Eden School Systems are being inspected by the FIA.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2018.