Round two: Budget officer arrested for another con

Also implicated in Rs7b weapon scam, Javed Khan has been accused of possessing illegal assets.

PESHAWAR:

After getting out on bail in the multi-billion rupee weapons procurement scam, central police office’s (CPO) budget officer Javed Khan was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for alleged wrongful possession of assets.

A NAB team arrested Javed Khan on Saturday for assets suspected to have been gained illegally. These include four houses in Hayatabad and seven other plots. The arrested officer is also believed to possess Rs40 million in cash.

The bureau suspects all these possessions were accumulated during Javed’s service in the police department and will investigate the source of said income and immoveable assets. Javed was produced before accountability court judge Tariq Yousafzai who granted Nab custody of the suspect for 12 days.

On August 6, 2013, a Peshawar High Court (PHC) bench comprising Justice Malik Manzoor Hussian and Justice Ikramullah Khan granted bail to Javed in the weapon scam. He was directed by the PHC to provide two sureties bonds worth Rs20 million each.

Javed and Arshad Majeed, a contractor, were arrested on February 21, 2013 after NAB K-P revealed gross violation of procurement rules by the purchase committee in awarding deals to favoured contractors. Majeed was released after he agreed to return Rs102 million voluntarily.

He had recorded his statement on May 25, 2013 in front of Judicial Magistrate Mohammad Ilyas Khan. In his five-page statement, Majeed accused former IGP Malik Naveed and Ghazan Hoti, former chief minister Ameer Haider Hoti’s brother in the same scam. Naveed, Ghazan and another relative of the former CM, Raza Ali Khan, have been arrested in this case.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2014.