ISLAMABAD: Qamar Zaman Chaudhary Chairman, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has said the NAB has established its own Forensic Science LAB which has been made operational with an aim to equip NAB with latest technology to cater for its emerging needs to eliminate menace of corruption from the society. He said this after reviewing the progress of NAB’s Forensic Science Lab here on Saturday.
He said that a concept of combined investigation Team (CIT) has been introduced as investigation officers and prosecution officer are now working as a team to ensure transparency and merit in conduct of investigations. He said that timelines have been prescribed for efficient, effective and expeditious disposal of case putting a maximum limit of 10 months- from complaint verification-to-inquiry-to investigation and finally to a reference in Accountability Court.
Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said NAB had signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Higher Education Commission in order to aware our youth in Universities and colleges about the ill effects of corruption at an early age. Our special emphasis is on setting up character building societies in educational institutes across the country to build an effective edifice against corruption and presently we have established more than 42 thousands character building societies (CBS) in Universities and Colleges throughout the country and their regular meetings and interaction with each other bringing very positive results and is a great achievement.
He said NAB has emphasized importance of students and given them an important role in its fight against corruption with the purpose to create awareness amongst the students regarding the adverse affects of corruption and spread the message in their homes and communities and build alliances to tackle this monster at the grass root level.
He said under our proactive approach, NAB has been engaging different governmental and non-governmental organizations and civil society in its fight against corruption. He said with the help of properly functioning forensic Lab, investigation Officers (IOs) probing different high profile corruption cases will be able to conduct Complaint verifications, Inquiries and Investigations transparently and on merit.
He said NAB’s Forensic Science LAB has the facilities of Digital Forensics, Fingerprint Forensics and Questioned Documents. Establishment of Forensic Science LAB will help in retrieving of documents from electronic devices like Cell Phones, Computers, iPads and networks and its preservation to determine authorship of questioned hand writing, identity questioned typescripts and printed documents to detect forgeries in questioned documents to determine interpolation, additions or overwriting and substitution of papers, and to work on Questioned Fingerprints for comparison and/or identification purposes.