Balochistan Finance Secretary remanded to 14-day police custody

QUETTA: An accountability court has sent Secretary Finance Balochistan, Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani, over a corruption scandal, to police custody on a 14-day remand.

The accused appeared before a judicial magistrate on Saturday. The court handed him over to the police on remand and instructed National Accountability Bureau officials to provide him with all medical facilities while in custody.

NAB officials on Friday raided the residence of Mushtaq Raisani and recovered bags of local and foreign currency, prize bonds and gold jewellery valued at around Rs630 million.

The bureau arrested Raisani during a raid on the finance department at the Civil Secretariat and took all the records into custody. Machines had to be arranged to count the large number of bills and prize bonds.

Balochistan’s Finance Advisor Mir Khalid Langov stepped down from his post on Friday, paving the way for transparent investigations after a huge amount of the ill-gotten money recovered from the residence of provincial Finance Secretary.

Khalid Langov announced his resignation as Balochistan Finance Advisor saying he was stepping down to pave way for a transparent probe to kick in.

“There are no allegations against me, but my department’s secretary is facing serious corruption charges,” he said.

Chief Secretary Balochistan issued a notification suspending Finance Secretary Mushtaq Ahmed Raisani from his post. Balochistan’s Interior Secretary Akbar Durrani was given the additional charge as Secretary Finance.