GUJRAT, Jan 18: The office of DSP Headquarters did not have any clue to the missing more than 100 pages (Zimnis) from investigation files of 44 criminal cases lodged with Lalamusa Saddar police station in 2003 , Dawn reliably learnt here on Monday.

Police sources told this correspondent that subordinates in the office had kept the DSP into darkness who, instead of conducting an inquiry into the matter, had directed the police station concerned to send copies of the missing pages.

The missing of pages came to surface during scrutiny of the register of police station, sources said. They did not name the man who scrutinized the record. However, a subordinate informed the DSP that he had found investigation files with incomplete papers which were pending with different investigation officers of the police station, sources said.

They claimed that the subordinate requested the DSP to order SHO Zulfiqar Waria to make arrangements to send the incomplete papers immediately. Upon this, DSP Mahmoodul Hasan Qureshi had issued a directive to the SHO in this regard and asked him to also send a list containing case numbers and their sections, names of investigation officers and number of incomplete pages, they said.

The list also contained the DSP's letter according to which he (DSP) had directed the SHO to send the papers in three days otherwise departmental or punitive action would be taken against the investigation officers. The investigation officers include four sub-inspectors and five assistant sub-inspectors.

Some of the investigation officers told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that they had sent files with complete papers and it was beyond their comprehension how the papers went missing.

They feared that someone in the office might have tampered with the investigation files to favour some accused as seven cases among them were of heinous nature. To conceal the crime and to make it a dubious issue, they took out of the files other papers, they said.

They did not rule out the possibility that some of the investigation officers might be their collaborators. They suggested that the DSP should conduct an inquiry into the matter personally. The DSP was not present in his office when contacted by telephone for comments.