ISLAMABAD, May 8: The Supreme Court was requested on Thursday to issue an order to get a centre for the welfare of mentally retarded and physically handicapped children in Lahore vacated from illegal occupation of Punjab Rangers.

Ms Attia Ahmed, president of the Life Welfare Society, Lahore, has moved the Supreme Court through her lawyer Nawab Saeedullah Khan, making the federal government, the Punjab government, director-general of Rangers, Lahore, Brig Qaisar Tareen, Col Ghulam Jaffar and Col Tariq Sheikh and UC 57 Nazim Malik Shaukat respondents in the petition.

The petitioner said that she and her husband Dr Ejaz Ahmad were running the registered welfare centre consisting of eight kanals of land allotted by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) for handicapped children, where 50 children were residing permanently and 120 children were getting vocational training.

In 2001, she said, the then director general of Punjab Rangers started paying Rs15,000 a month to the centre for its improvement, which was later carried out by the next General Hussain Mehdi.

Later, some high-ranking officials of the Punjab Rangers, she stated, including both the directors-general as well as Brig Qaisar Tareen, Col Ghulam Jaffar and Col Tariq Sheikh with alleged connivance of UC 57 Nazim Malik Shaukat got an account opened with the ABN Amro Bank in Defence, Lahore, in the name of the Life Welfare Society and allegedly misappropriated Rs50 million.

She said that when she and her husband, along with disabled students, staged a protest outside the Lahore Press Club and approached police, senior officers of the Rangers got bogus cases registered against them and threatened them with dire consequences.

Later, the Rangers’ officials occupied the centre and threw them as well as children out of the centre. She prayed to the court to take notice of the matter and order recovery of Rs50 million from Rangers’ officials. She also prayed to the court to get the centre vacated from illegal occupation of Rangers.