A Pakistan bureaucrat, a joint secretary in the Ministry of Industries and Production, has been suspended from service on disciplinary grounds after he was caught stealing a foreign dignitary’s wallet. The bureaucrat, Zarrar Haider Khan, is a BS-20 officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service cadre.

According to a report in Dawn.com, the officer was caught on closed-circuit TV (CCTV) camera stealing a visiting Kuwaiti delegate’s wallet and pocketing it. The delegate was part of a Kuwaiti team visiting Pakistan to discuss investment plans.

Quoting sources, the report said the Kuwaiti delegation lodged a strong protest over the missing wallet, after which the act was caught on CCTV.

A six-second leaked video clip of the incident later went viral on social media. In the video, the officer could be seen lifting the wallet from the table and putting it into his pocket, and it seemed he did this when the Kuwaiti delegates had left the meeting venue.

Grade 20 GoP officer stealing a Kuwaiti official’s wallet – the official was part of a visiting delegation which had come to meet the PM pic.twitter.com/axODYL3SaZ

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) September 28, 2018

According to the report, the issue came to light when a member of the Kuwaiti delegation lodged a complaint regarding his missing wallet, which reportedly contained a significant sum of Kuwaiti dinars.

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While a search was conducted, nothing was initially found. Later, CCTV footage from the hall was examined, and the senior officer was caught. The officer had first denied his involvement, but he produced the wallet after the CCTV footage was shown to him, Dawn.com reported.

“All officers of the Ministry of Industries and Economics Affairs Division, as well as other participants, were shocked when the head of the Kuwaiti mission complained about the incident,” Pakistan Today quoted an official as saying.

“This is a very unfortunate development that has brought a bad name to the country as well as the officers working here,” he added.

Khan was arrested and legal proceedings were started, Daily Pakistan reported.

Asked to comment on the incident, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said most of the present bureaucrats had received their “moral training” by previous governments, reported Dawn.com.