PESHAWAR: An accountability court here on Thursday convicted a deputy secretary (administration) and former cashier of Pakistan Tobacco Board in a case of embezzlement of funds and sentenced them to three years imprisonment each with fine of Rs4.5 million each.

The accountability judge, Mohammad Asim Imam, ruled that the prosecution had proved its case against the two accused persons deputy secretary Sardar Hussain and excashier Mahmood Khan.

The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had arrested the cashier in 2011 and later on he was released on bail by the high court. The NAB had alleged that both of them in connivance with each other had misappropriated money from the fund of Pakistan Tobacco Board. It was alleged that the total looted money was to the tune of Rs9 million.

A special prosecutor of NAB, Hasnain Tariq, argued that the evidence on record proved the involvement of the accused in the commission of the offence. He contended that the accused could not put forward any convincing argument to counter the case of NAB.

Meanwhile, another accountability court presided over by Tariq Yousafzai further remanded to the custody of NAB for 12 days five suspects including a former divisional forest officer arrested on charges of embezzling forest royalty of royalty-holders to the tune of Rs76 million in Chitral.

The suspects including an elected district councilor, Prince Khalid Pervez, who is brother of MNA Prince Iftikharuddin, the then Chitral DFO Gulzarur Rehman, who is now assistant professor at Peshawar Forest College, and three private persons Noor Shahideen , Rehmat Karim , Malak Shaye, were produced before the court after completion of their earlier physical custody of 14 days with the NAB.

Special prosecutors of NAB, Danyal Chamkani and Riaz Mohmand, appeared before the court and contended that investigation in the case had still been in progress for which further custody of the suspects was required.

The NAB has alleged that on the complaint of poor concessionists/royalty-holders of Chitral the bureau had initiated inquiry in which it was revealed that as per policy of forest department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, forest royalty should be distributed amongst the concessionists of the locality equally through Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC).

It is alleged that the suspect Noor Shahideen had made a fake JFMC and fraudulently made himself chairman of the said committee through the active connivance of other accused persons. The suspects later on diverted and embezzled an amount of Rs76 million through complex banking transactions and pocketed the same.