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| June 11, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1426 |
Case against TMA official leads to mudslinging
FAISALABAD, June 10: The Sargodha Road police on Friday registered a case against the chairman of the TMA’s monitoring committee for finance on the charges of extorting money from people.
Some residents of Noorpur complained to the police that Mian Sarfraz Ahmad alias Guddu, the chairman of monitoring committee for finance, extorted Rs1,000 from each vendor of the area every month by introducing himself as a TMA contractor.
They claimed that when they approached the TMA higher-ups they were informed that the official had no authority to collect any type of fee or tax from the people.
The Sargodha Road police instituted a case against Mian Sarfraz, who is also nazim of the area, under section 420, 467, 468 and 471 of PPC. The police also raided his house and factory at Noorpur, but to no avail.
The TMA official, however, denied the allegations and described them as part of a “politically motivated” move of City Tehsil Nazim Mumtaz Ali Cheema.
He claimed that he, along with some other councillors, protested against corruption and wrongdoings of the city tehsil nazim and other ruling party members immediately after assuming charge.
“We moved about 100 complaints to President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and other government functionaries to take action against the corrupt officials,” he said.
He further alleged that a couple of days ago the TMA staff launched an operation in his area and took articles of several shopkeepers into custody on the pretext of removing encroachments. Some of the vendors were forced by the TMA higher-ups to lodge applications against him on the basis of which a case had been registered, he claimed.
Meanwhile, Mian Sarfraz and TMA’s monitoring committee for regulations chairman Abdul Hafeez have lodged a complaint with the DIG claiming that Mr Cheema was threatening them with dire consequences for pursuing a case.
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