Grade-20 officer who stole Kuwaiti delegate's purse suspended

KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: A Grade-20 government employee, who was earlier caught on camera stealing the purse of a Kuwaiti delegate, has been suspended, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on Sunday.

According to Chaudhry, Zarrar Haider Khan, a BS-20 officer who is the joint secretary of the Ministry of Industries and Production, was accused of stealing the purse of a Kuwaiti diplomat who was part of a delegation visiting Pakistan.

"The government [of Pakistan] has suspended Zarrar Haider" on disciplinary grounds, the minister said, adding: "An investigation has been launched" into the officer suspected of theft.

The move was confirmed through a notification issued by the Cabinet Secretariat.

The officer's action caused a lot of embarrassment throughout the country after it was identified through a closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage that went viral on social media.

According to a local media outlet, Haider first refused to have knowledge of the incident when authorities first questioned him about it. He, however, produced the stolen purse after he was shown the CCTV video.