LARKANA, Jan 24: The manager (operation) of the National Bank of Pakistan (Bank Square branch), Wazir Ahmed Shaikh, has lodged a fraud case with the Market police
, alleging that a person, pretending to be the revenue officer of the Hesco (Larkana), had swindled the bank of over Rs597,000.
The Market police told this correspondent here on Monday that Noor Ahmed Channa posing as Hesco revenue officer had opened an account with the said bank branch, and had also produced a letter authorizing transfer of the earlier account of the revenue officer in his own name.
Later, he defrauded an amount of Rs597,200 from the bank, with the first cheque being honoured on December 20, 2004, and the last one on January 6, police said, adding that the accused had mentioned his residential address as Sachal Colony, but following investigation, it was found that no one with that name resided there.
On December 17, 2004, the local treasury office passed a bill of Rs200,000 and sent it to the VIP Road branch for onward transfer to the Bank Square branch, they said.
The manager had also named Mohammad Ismail Abro (the 'reference'), and Ghulam Asghar Buledi and Shabir Buledi (friends) in the FIR; out of whom Shabir had been arrested.
However, SP (investigation) Ghulam Haider Abro said that since police was not empowered to investigate such cases, he had written to the in-charge of the FIA (Sukkur circle) to take up the case. He questioned the unnecessarily meddling of the police investigation wing into affairs that did not fall under its jurisdiction.
DOCTORS FORUM: The People's Doctors Forum (Sindh chapter), has demanded re-implementation of the four-tier formula for promotion of doctors in the province.
In a statement issued here on Monday, PDF provincial president Dr Karim Khwaja, pointing towards speedy promotion of the secretariat group, said that non-application of the formula had affected doctors working in the general cadre.
He said that in 1996, around 3,500 doctors were promoted from grade 17 to 18, from 18 to 19, and from 19 to 20, but since then, the Sindh health department never applied the formula.
Dr Khwaja said that it was mandatory to promote doctors in grade 17 within seven years, grade 18 after 12 years, and grade 19 after 17 years; however, the slow pace of promotions had affected the overall service structure of the province.
He said that it was quite unfair that hundreds of grade-18 doctors, working in the special cadre, were awaiting promotion for the last 15 years, whereas teaching doctors was being promoted regularly.
The PDF urged the Sindh government to adopt the formula and introduce a new 'administrative cadre' in the health department. Secretary-general Dr Abdul Razzak Shaikh regretted that around 2,500 doctors, who passed their commission examination in 1993 and 1994, were still in grade 17.
