May 12, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 6, 1429

HYDERABAD, May 11: The Tando Mohammad Khan taluka council approved on Saturday a revised budget of Rs81.2 million for 2007-08 and appealed to the Sindh chief minister to restore monthly instalment of Rs4.8 million to the council without making any cuts.

The session unanimously adopted the budget presented by Taluka Nazim Mir Ghullamullah Talpur. The Awam Dost Panel members, Syed Ameer Haider Shah, Shafiq Ahmed Bhatti called for restoration of the monthly instalment and pointed out that the Rs3.125 million the council had received so far was not enough.

Only the staff salaries accounted for Rs2.9 million, they added.

Work on development schemes had come to a standstill in the taluka due to paucity of funds, they said.

The council adopted a resolution criticizing the Hyderabad Electricity Supply Company for ever-increasing duration of load-shedding and switching off streetlights

Illegal detention:

A man has accused the Sakrand DSP of keeping his brother, two cousins and a friend in wrongful confinement in police lock-up and demanding bribe for their release.

Mohammad Akhtar Siyal of Ayoub Goth, Karachi, said at a news conference at the press club here on Sunday that the DSP forced his brother, Mohammad Younus Siyal and cousin, Mukhtiar Ahmed Siyal who were going to Moro on May 4, to get down the bus at Sakrand, snatched Rs250,000 and then put them behind bars.

He said that the DSP informed him on telephone after two days that his brother and cousin had been arrested. On Saturday, he met the DSP in Sakrand with another cousin, Aijaz and a friend Mansoor Chachar and the police official demanded huge bribe for the release his relatives, he said.

The DSP first put them in the lock-up but then let him go with the demand to bring Rs500,000 bribe, he said, adding that the DSP now held his brother, two cousins and a friend in wrongful confinement.

He said that the detainees had not been produced in any court nor any case had been registered against them so far.—Bureau