KARACHI: An accountability court in Karachi on Wednesday deferred the indictment of former Sindh police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali and other accused in a corruption reference.
The court will now indict the suspects on March 20. The accused have been directed to ensure their appearance in the next hearing.
In 2017, the National Accountability Bureau filed a corruption reference against Jamali and other police officials for allegedly making some 5,000 illegal appointments by misusing their authority in the Sindh Reserve Police (SRP) in Hyderabad during 2013-14, causing a loss of Rs500 million to the national exchequer.
The NAB had filed the reference against Jamali; Fida Hussain, then Sindh Reserve Police Head; Aitezaz Ahmed, then SSP; Captain (r) Ghulam Azfar Mahesar, then SP of Matiari district; Amjad Ahmed Shaikh, SP; Khalid Mustafa Korai and others for their alleged roles in making appointments.
It was alleged that the aforementioned police officers misused their authority and circumvented the required procedure to make the appointments in the Sindh police and the Sindh Reserve Police, in particular.
Initially, the Supreme Court (SC) had appointed a fact-finding committee to identify illegalities in recruitment, and later, in the light of the committees’ recommendations, it had referred the matter to NAB to investigate the scam.
