Sindh govt appoints Dr Sohail Rajput new Karachi Commissioner

KARACHI: The Sindh government on Tuesday appointed Sohail Rajput the new Karachi Commissioner after transferring Iftikhar Shalawani, who was serving as the city's commissioner, to the post of secretary Local Government & Housing Town Planning Department. 

Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah approved Rajput's appointment, who is a Grade 21 officer, as Commissioner Karachi.

Who is Dr Sohail Rajput?

A senior government officer who joined the civil service in 1991, Dr Rajput was serving at the post of additional secretary at the Ministry of Finance before his appointment as commissioner of the Karachi Division.

He has previously been appointed to the posts of secretary local government Sindh board, secretary finance Sindh, commissioner Hyderabad Division and principal secretary to the chief minister Sindh. 

In 2018, Dr Rajput's services were transferred to the federal government where he was appointed to the Ministry of Finance as the additional secretary. 

On August 18, 2020, his services were once again transferred to the Sindh government. He is expected to take charge as Commissioner Karachi soon.  

NAB arrests Sindh's local government secretary, others over illegal land allotment

Shallwani's transfer to the post came about a day after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Sindh's Secretary, Local Government Roshan Ali Shaikh from the Sindh High Court over his suspected involvement in a case pertaining to the illegal allotment of government land.

NAB officials moved to arrest the senior bureaucrat after the High Court rejected Shaikh’s bail plea in the case.

The court, while hearing the case today, remarked that Shaikh and nine others had been involved in the illegal allotment of land and misused their powers as government officials. The court added that the suspects caused a loss to the national exchequer and should therefore be arrested immediately.

The court also issued orders for the arrest of Fazlur Rehman and others accused in the reference, including Waseem, Nadeem Qadir Khokhar, Sabih Aslam and others.

MQM’s Saif Abbas, Shoaib Memon and Shaukat Jokhio, who have been in jail for the last two years in connection with the case, were granted bail, with the court ordering their immediate release.

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and the Sindh Board of Revenue had filed a reference against Shaikh and others, accusing them of allotting 265 acres of government land illegally. The land, which was located in Landhi, was illegally allotted to the small cottage industry.