A senior government official, who was named in a corruption reference, committed suicide on Tuesday owing to the alleged harassment by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
Geo News reported that the deceased, a BS-22 officer, was upset because of NAB’s ongoing investigation against him and others for months. According to the report that quoted a family friend of the deceased, the officer killed himself because he was “deeply stressed” due to NAB.
A NAB spokesperson rejected the allegations. According to NAB, the deceased was not even in its custody. It added that the case was filed six months ago and it’s sub-judice at present.
Reportedly, the deceased was named in a case pertaining to the alleged embezzlement of Rs1.657 billion after the Benazir Income Support Programme high-ups awarded an illegal contract to an advertising agency.
NAB has been accused of pressurising suspects on multiple occasions, and this is not the first time that someone has committed suicide to escape its clutches.
It is to mention here that former Military Intelligence officer and prominent defense analyst Brig (r) Asad Munir committed suicide after the emergence of media reports that NAB had decided to file a reference of abuse of office against him. His body was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his apartment in Diplomatic Enclave on March 16, 2019.
Furthermore, former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) senator Sehar Kamran also compiled data which claimed that “NAB custody is worse than the United States’ (US) infamous military jail, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp”.
The scattered data of alleged rights violations by NAB was compiled by Kamran in a brief she reportedly sent to Federal Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari among other authorities concerned earlier this year.
According to the brief, 11 NAB suspects have lost their lives while in custody or “as a direct result of the harassment by the agency”.
