Abuse of power: NAB gets 10-day custody of Mardan DSP

Former Hayatabad SHO is accused of amassing millions in assets during his tenure.

PESHAWAR:

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa obtained a 10-day physical remand of a serving DSP in Mardan for allegedly possessing assets worth millions of rupees.

DSP Rajab Ali, a former Hayatabad police station SHO, was produced before Accountability Court Judge Tariq Yousafzai for obtaining a physical remand amid tight security.

NAB Special Prosecutor Lajbar Khan told the court the former SHO accumulated millions of rupees by violating his authority. The Peshawar High Court (PHC) had earlier ordered an enquiry against the officer as many complaints of misuse of power had been received against him.

The court handed over the accused to the custody of NAB for 10 days.

A NAB official told The Express Tribune that, based on the order of former PHC chief justice, the bureau started an enquiry against the accused. The investigation disclosed that Ali amassed assets worth more than Rs200 million during his stint in Hayatabad, which included prized land and several vehicles. He said the accused had registered the assets under his father and brothers’ names.

Former PHC chief justice Dost Muhammad Khan, who is at present a Supreme Court justice, had taken notice of police officials detaining people illegally and had ordered NAB to conduct an enquiry against the officials. Many people had filed complaints against police officials, including Ali, for detaining their relatives and then taking bribes to release them.

NAB’s initial investigations showed that Ali was serving as the Hayatabad SHO when the court took notice of his activities in March 2012. In July of that year, NAB froze the accused’s properties, including a 40-marla and a one-kanal plot in Taxila, 32 kanals and a six-marla plot in Chinarabad and a 15-marla plot in Lala Killay in Peshawar.

NAB also revealed that Ali possesses properties in townships of the Kohat Development Authority, Peshawar Development Authority, Capital Development Authority and Defence Housing Authority.

On March 20, 2012, the PHC ordered police high-ups to remove Ali as the Hayatabad SHO and send him to the Police Lines. The order was issued by a PHC division bench headed by Dost Muhammad while hearing a detention case of a sixth grade student Iqbal Hussain.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2014.