Corruption charges: Court sends Mardan DSP to central jail

Rajab Ali is accused of accumulating assets worth millions of rupees while serving as Hayatabad SHO.

PESHAWAR:

A serving DSP accused of illegally accumulating assets worth millions of rupees was sent on judicial remand to Central Prison Peshawar on Saturday, after spending nearly a month in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Mardan DSP Rajab Ali was arrested on April 18 and remained in NAB’s custody so that the bureau could extract information regarding the charges levelled against him.

On Saturday, Ali was produced before the court of accountability judge Tariq Yousafzai. NAB officials requested an extension in Ali’s physical remand, however, the court declined and sent the accused to the central jail on a 14-day judicial remand instead.

The bureau began an enquiry against the accused on the orders of former Peshawar High Court (PHC) chief justice (CJ) Dost Muhammad Khan. The enquiry report revealed that while Ali was posted as SHO of Hayatabad police station in Peshawar, he accumulated assets worth over Rs200 million.

According to the NAB enquiry report, Ali was serving as SHO when the court took notice of his activities in March 2012 and ordered the investigation.

In July 2012, NAB froze Ali’s immovable assets which included a 40-marla plot and one kanal plot in Taxila, 32 kanals and a six-marla plot at Chinarabad, and a 15-marla plot in Lala Killay, Peshawar.

Ali also possesses property in the townships established by the Kohat Development Authority, Peshawar Development Authority, Capital Development Authority and Defence Housing Authority, the NAB report adds.

Ali was removed from the post of Hayatabad SHO on March 20, 2012 on the orders of the PHC and sent to the police lines. The order was issued by the division bench headed by former CJ Dost Muhammad Khan while hearing a case of illegal detention of a sixth-grade grade student Iqbal Hussain.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2014.