ISLAMABAD – The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to accept the plea bargain request of Mushtaq Ahmad Raisani, Balochistan’s former finance secretary, as well as Sohail Majeed Shah.
The former civil servants, who were allegedly working as the contractor and frontman of Khalid Langove, the former adviser to chief minister Balochistan for finance, will pay NAB a whopping amount of over Rs. 2 billion as part of the plea bargain, a press release issued by NAB on Wednesday said.
On May 6, NAB recovered more than Rs. 730 million from Raisani’s residence in Quetta in a raid that raised the eyebrows of the graft buster.
According to an anonymous NAB official, Raisani was accused of embezzling billions of rupees from local government development funds.
Following Raisani’s arrest and the recovery of embezzled money, the provincial finance adviser Langove also immediately offered to step down from the post.
On October 24, the Supreme Court barred NAB from approving deals for voluntary return, that allowed people found guilty of corruption to pay a certain amount of embezzled money to walk free.
The option of accepting a plea bargain, however, remains on the cards. The national graft buster was lampooned a few days ago for sending messages ‘Say No to Corruption’ across Pakistan and the latest decision might result in public outcry as well.
