June 11, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1427

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GUJRANWALA, June 10: The anti-terrorism court (ATC) No 1 continued the hearing of Sialkot jail incident case and recorded the statement of former Kasur DPO Ghulam Muhammad Kalyar here on Saturday.

The DPO apprised the court that the Punjab IGP had constituted an inquiry team, headed by then Sheikhupura DIG Tariq Saleem Dogar on July 9, 2003 while he himself, DSPs Umer Farooq and Younis Butt were members of the team.

He said the team had started the inquiry on July 31 and recorded the statements of about 22 women prisoners, ladies warden, besides jail superintendent Malik Shaukat Feroze and his deputy Muhammad Safdar.

He said two assistant superintendents of jail — Ghulam Sarwar and Raja Mushtaq - had been arrested the same day. He said the then Gujranwala DIG, Malik Muhammad Iqbal, Sialkot DPO Amjed Javed Saleemi, Narowal DPO Muhammad Azam and Gujrat DPO Raja Munawar Husain gave their written statements to the inquiry team on Aug 1. Former SHO Zulfikar Ali Virk had joined the investigation on April 16, 2004.

He said charge sheets against the accused were submitted before the court thrice, but it returned the same after raising objections. He admitted that former jail deputy superintendent Malik Iftikhar was declared as proclaimed offender in the charge sheet. The court adjourned the case till June 16.

BAIL PLEAS REJECTED: A local court on Saturday rejected bail applications of those influential accused, including a former UC nazim and a motorway inspector, who were caught red-handed along with three women of Lahore from a hotel a week ago.

Judicial magistrate Sheikh Anwarullah took a serious notice of the defective police investigation and censured the investigation officer.

He said an SI had admitted in his report that the accused were drunk and the police had recovered bottles of liquor from their possession during the raid.

But he changed the FIR after 10 hours of the incident following deleting Hudood ordinance from it, Mr Anwarullah said. Reports said the Model Town police had arrested the accused from a VIP hotel during a raid a week ago and sent them to jail after registration of a criminal case against them.

SHOT DEAD: A painter was shot dead by unidentified assailants at Alipur by-pass intersection on Saturday. Reports said Muhammad Shabbir, father of four children, was painting doors and windows of a bungalow when the accused came there and opened fire, killing him on the spot. The motive behind the murder could not be ascertained. Police are investigating.