KARACHI: Two sisters of a former Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker were among 13 candidates fraudulently appointed in the education department as lecturer in 2010, it emerged on Thursday.

The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) booked the then section officer of the education department Mohammed Zaheer, Abdullah Junejo and some other officials posted at different colleges in Sindh along with 13 candi-dates for allegedly making fake appointments of lecturers in the department on the basis of forged documents in 2010.

Former Mirpurkhas deputy director of education Abdul Aziz, who was a prosecution witness in the case, turned up before a provincial anti-corruption court a few days ago and recorded his evidence.

The witness deposed that after finding the documents of a newly appointed lecturer doubtful he informed the then deputy secretary of education departmentBashir Ahmed Brohi about it.

He further deposed that a letter was received from the additional secretary Akhtar Ghouri for an inquiry into the falce and fictitious appointments of male and female lecturers.

The witness said that he, along with the then regional director of Larkana Ghulam Abbas Junejo, regional director of Sukkur Altaf Shaikh and director of Hyderabad Imam Ali Mirza, conducted an inquiry and found 13 fake and fictitious appointments against the posts of lecturers.The former education official deposed that Fatima Chandio and Saima Chandio the sisters of then PPP MPA Kulsum Chandio were among the candidates illegally appointed.

After conducting an inquiry, the ACE registered an FIR in 2011 against 30 suspects, including the then deputy secretaries of education Bashir Brohi and Uzma Ismail.

The ACE contended that as per record collected from different offices of the education department it appeared that the nominated officials of the educationand literacy department and the beneficiaries committed the offence of cheating and produced forged documents for their personal gains.

Besides nominating both the deputy secretaries as accused, the ACE had claimed in the FIR that notifications of all fake appointments were signed by Mr Brohi while a notification of one such appointment was also bearing the signature of Ms Ismail.

However, the ACE had not charge-sheeted both senior officials for `lack of evidence`.