ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has initiated a probe against officials from the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) in the matter of 21 `missing` vehicles.

Twenty-two non-custom paid vehicles were purchased by FBISE Islamabad in 2009 when Ms Shaheen Khan was the chairperson of the board but were allegedly not utilised for official purposes.

According to documents available with Dawn, FIA`s Anti Corruption Circle issued summons to 10 board officials, including the former chairperson and the former secretary of the department, in August, ordering them to appear before investigators to record their statements.

Current FBISE Chairman Ikram Ali Malik confirmed that an internal inquiry had been conducted into the matter of the 21 missing vehicles.

`We shared our findings with the education ministry a couple of weeks ago and subsequently referred the case to FIA.

FBISE Secretary Mohammad Sarwar told that the board had been working with the FIA to ascertain the facts of the case.

Sources say that 22 vehicles, which included saloon cars, jeeps and Toyota Hiace vans, were purchased, but not brought back to the board office. It is alleged that they were shifted to some other locations, where they were also stripped of their parts.

When the current board chairman assumed charge last year, there was only one non-custom paid vehicle available for the board`s official use.

Sources said that the inquiry committee had recently managed to locate 14 of the missing vehicles, which had been parked at a vacant plot on Khayaban-iSir Syed in Rawalpindi.

Another was traced to Moti Mehal, one was found in Bani Gala, while two others were in the use of the Pakistan Boy Scouts. A number of vehicles, however, are still unaccounted for.

According to sources within FBISE, it has emerged that the vacant lot where 14 of the vehicles were found parked, was the property of a close relative of Imtiaz Ahmed, an assistant director at the board.

When Dawn contacted Mr Ahmed, he said that he had recorded his statement before the FIA on Friday, where he had told investigators that he had `helped out` the board by arranging for the vehicles to be parked at the vacant lot.

`I was asked by my [senior] officers to find a parking space for the vehicles as a favour, at which I provided them the vacant plot that belongs to my relative,` he said.

When asked about spare parts that were allegedly missing from the parked vehicles, he said that it was the responsibility ofboard tolook aftertheirvehicles.

`I`m not responsible for anything that happens to those vehicles,` he maintained.

Former FBISE chairperson Shaheen Khan told Dawn said that during her tenure, 22 non-custom paid vehicles had been purchased for board use against token money and claimed that the board secretary at the time had purchased the vehicles.

`My job was to make the policy, purchasing the vehicles was the responsibility of the secretary,` she said, adding that she had yet to record her statement before the FIA.

She also claimed that certain elements within the board were trying to defame her by implicating her in such cases.

`The FIA is probing the matter, so let them investigate, she said.

When asked why the board had parked those vehicles at a private plot rather than utilising them for official purposes, she said: `We were facing a shortage of parking space on the board office premises, which is why the vehicles were parked there.

She also told Dawn that during her term as chairperson, the board had floated a tender for the repair and maintenance of those vehicles, but work on that could not be completed due tocertainunspeciñedreasons.