NAB files in SC report in response to Asad Munir’s suicide note

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday submitted a report to the Supreme Court relating to the purported suicide note left by retired brigadier and analyst Asad Munir.

The report was furnished in a sealed envelope before the court which had earlier sought a reply from NAB on March 21. On the directive of Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, the Human Rights Cell of the top court had sought a response from NAB to the suicide note after it was received by the office of the Supreme Court registrar.

Earlier while hearing an appeal of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on March 26, the chief justice had questioned the manner in which NAB functioned by asking whether the bureau caused so much stress to those facing corruption inquiries that they fell sick and why the bureau, which had recovered billions of rupees, did not set up a hospital for treatment of those who fell ill (because of pressure exerted on them).

“People have now started committing suicide and the Supreme Court has taken up the matter of mysterious suicide committed by former intelligence officer and analyst Asad Munir,” the chief justice had said.

Retired brigadier took his own life a day after bureau decided to file corruption reference against him

In his suicide note, retired Brig Munir, who had served in the Pakistan Army as an intelligence officer and also worked on different key posts in civilian departments, had expressed the confidence that he was giving his life in the hope that the chief justice would bring about positive changes in the system under which incompetent officials were playing with the life and honour of citizens in the name of accountability.

Retired Brig Munir was found hanged in the study of his house in the most guarded area of Islamabad on March 15 and his family found a suicide note, without signature, suggesting that he had committed suicide to avoid humiliation as NAB had initiated three investigations and two inquiries against him in the last one year.

In his two-page letter, retired Brig Munir had accused NAB of harassing him. He committed suicide a day after NAB’s executive board approved filing of a corruption reference against him and other former officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA). Retired Brig Munir, being member estate of the CDA, and other former officials of the authority were accused of illegally allotting a plot in Sector F-11 of the capital city.

In his suicide note, he said that he had remained a member of the CDA estate office from 2006 to 2010 and for more than six next years there was no case against him, but since April 2017 his life had been made miserable by NAB.

The letter said that retired Brig Munir’s name was placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) in Nov 2017 by the interior ministry for three months under an FIR in which he was not nominated. Though he sent a review application to the interior secretary, he received no response from him and his name remained on the ECL after more than a year.

The suicide note said that he had submitted details of his assets to NAB on June 14, 2018, but was committing suicide to avoid humiliation to be caused by his being handcuffed and paraded in the front of the media.

Retired Brig Munir requested the chief justice to take notice of the conduct of the officials of the anti-graft watchdog so that other government officials were not accused of crimes they had not committed.

With one exception, the letter said, all other investigating officers in his cases were incompetent, rude, arrogant, untrained, knew little about the working of the CDA and had already assumed that he had been involved in corrupt practices without listening to him.

All the cases against retired Brig Munir were based on the audit paragraphs, the letter stated.

Retired Brig Munir recalled that when he worked as deputy director general of Special Investigation Wing, Rawalpindi NAB, he always treated all accused with respect and investigating officers working under him also knew the difference between criminality and irregularity, omission and oversight, the letter said.