Court grants NAB 14-day remand of three accused in Sindh tractor scheme case

ISLAMABAD: An Accountability Court (AC) Tuesday granted National Accountability Bureau (NAB) a fourteen-day physical remand of three accused involved in misappropriation of funds worth Rs 793.5 millions in Sindh tractors subsidy scheme for farmers.

Executive Engineer of Sindh Agriculture Department Aftab Ahemd, tractor dealer Ghulam Sarwar and Tara Chand were arrested by the NAB Rawalpindi officials when they appeared before it last day to record their statements.

The NAB produced the accused persons before AC-I Judge Muhammad Bashir and requested the judge to grant their 14-day physical remand for further investigation.

At the outset of hearing, NAB Prosecutor Sohail Arif contended that grounds of arrests had been provided to the accused. He said the subsidy given by the government was misused by the accused and they caused loss to national exchequer through corrupt practices.

He informed the court that the tractors were issued on fake CNICs and fake farmers' names, and later sold in open market. He alleged that accused Ghulam Sarwar and Tara Chan fraudulently obtained 450 and 250 IMT company tractors, respectively.

Accused Tara Chan's lawyer opposed the physical remand request and pleaded that all the transaction related to tractors were done through bank, adding that the NAB allegation were based on just verbal stories. He said the NAB had not produce the evidence regarding transactions through fake bank accounts.

However, accused Aftab Ahmed requested the court to issue orders for making him contact to his family who was unaware of his arrest.

He said his father was ill and his wife was alone at home.

The accused said that they had appeared before NAB on its summon notice, adding that they wouldn't appear themselves if they had committed any corruption.

The court directed the NAB to make the accused contact his family and granted fourteen-days physical remand of them.

It may be mentioned here that the corruption was done with the connivance of Omni Group and Orient Group in tractor scheme.