27 forest men named over Changa Manga timber scandal
A case has been registered against 27 Forest Department officials by the Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) over the pilferage of wood from the Changa Manga forest. The FIR was registered on Monday.
Senior officials made OSD by the chief minister, including the conservator and chief conservator, and Abdul Rehman, Rana Ishaq and Rana Hayat, named in the departmental report as involved in timber theft, were not nominated in the FIR.
The Tribune has also learnt that all the staff earlier deputed at Changa Manga stopped coming to work while substitute officials are yet to be posted to replace the missing officers.
According to a report, around 3,000 acres of the over 4,000 acres of forest it Changa Manga, including 45,000 healthy Shisham trees, had been cut over the last 10 years, leaving around a thousand acres .
On June 16, the chief minister had made chief conservator Mehmoobur Rehman and conservator Rao Khalid Mehmood OSD over the Changa Manga corruption scandal. Three committees were constituted to probe the depletion of three forests including Changa Manga, Chichawanti and Shahdara. One of the committees was headed by the Punjab ACE director general.
On June 25, ACE Kasur registered an FIR against 27 officials, including two divisional forest officers (DFO), four sub divisional forest officers (SDFO), 15 forest guards and three office clerks.
The implicated officers included SDFO Farid Ahmed who, after being posted two months ago, had registered 14 timber thefts FIRs, imposed fines and confiscated over a dozen vehicles allegedly used to steal timber.
Taseer Ahmed, deputy director investigation of the ACE, said that three officials, including DFO Muhammad Saleem, Muhammad Siddiqui and SDFO Farid Ahmed had been arrested on Wednesday. He said they had secured a two-day remand for the officials for further investigation.
He said that the “timber mafia” would be identified based on information provided by arrested officials. He said that raids had been conducted to arrest the other officials but they were hiding. He said that Ahmed was accused of embezzling funds.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 30th, 2012.
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