LAHORE: The Punjab government has made the former commandant of Police Training College (PTC) Lahore, Mehboob Aslam Lilla, officer on special duty (OSD) soon after the findings of an inquiry held him and eight other officials of the college guilty of embezzlement of Rs226m.
The inquiry committee was constituted by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz after an internal audit of the PTC’s various accounts detected large-scale alleged financial irregularities during the 32-month posting period of Mr Lilla as the college commandant.
The committee was headed by Punjab Additional IG Investigation Shahzada Sultan while Welfare and Finance Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Rana Masoom was its member.
In its report finalised a couple of days back, seen by Dawn, the committee categorically used words ‘corruption, bogus inspections and fake billings’, stating that these charges proved true during the investigation into the financial scam involving six other officers, including a DSP.
Ex-school head made OSD; high-level inquiry committee was formed after internal audit detected irregularities
The inquiry panel has submitted its report to the CM for a regular inquiry to be conducted by Establishment Division Islamabad into the charges against Mr Lilla who has also been serving lately as DIG Elite Force, making him first DIG-ranked police officer to be grilled by the Division for corruption.
A senior official told Dawn the Punjab government has also forwarded the inquiry report to Anti-Corruption Punjab Director General Sohail Zafar Chatha to initiate criminal proceedings against the guilty officials of the PTC Lahore as recommended by the committee. He said the inquiry report had pointed out involvement of a key suspect, vendor Yasir Ayub, in the scam whom the staff in the training college used to dub ‘deputy commandant’ due to the support of the then top command of the college.
“Yasir has been running the PTC Lahore as a private college,” read the findings of the inquiry report, adding that he had allegedly embezzled funds of the PTC Lahore through 5/6 private companies he was operating.
The official said the report found the proof of corruption in more than 12 accounts of the college, including Rs4.1m embezzled in the accounts of training aid, Rs90.7m of the funds provided by Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (Pera) and Rs20m in the funds provided to the under-training staff for ‘free meal’. The report stated that Mehboob Aslam Lilla was the ‘sacntioning authority’.
The official source said the corruption allegations were proved through bogus paper trail, bogus inspection reports and fake entries.
The inquiry panel also held DSP Shahid Javed, a senior clerk/accountant and six other employees serving in PTC guilty of alleged corruption, fraud and forgery, which led to the large-scale embezzlement of more than Rs226m.
To a question, the source said it was reported for the first time by DIG retired Capt Sohail Chaudhry who had replaced Mehboob Aslam Lilla as the PTC commandant in February 2026. As he noticed some irregularities in the PTC accounts, he recommended to the Punjab police chief to initiate an internal audit of the institution. IGP Abdul Kareem dispatched a team headed by Raja Faisal, the Punjab Highways Patrol (PHP) DIG, who carried out an internal audit of the accounts and pointed out alleged financial irregularities.
Separately, Sohail Chaudhry had also also written a letter to the Punjab Audit DG for external audit with a request to expand the scope of investigations of the last four financial years starting from 2021-2022.
Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2026
