June 11, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 10: Law Minister Farooq H. Naek has asked a division of his ministry to pursue a private complaint that some influential people took Rs4 billion loans from cooperative banks in the name of small farmers and swallowed it.

Mian Aftab, the complainant, told Dawn on Tuesday that he met the minister and informed him that thousands of small farmers were suffering the consequences like him for the sins of others.

“Hundreds of the innocent victims of the scam, belonging to all four provinces, the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir are languishing in jails across the country,” he said.

Law Minister Naek has asked the Secretary of Human Rights Division of his ministry to look into the allegations and report him back within one week.

Mian Aftab said he had agitated the issue in 1998 and an inquiry ordered by the then chief minister of Punjab, Mian Shehbaz Sharif, had identified 40 officers of cooperative banks as collaborators. The Lahore High Court on May 2, 2000 ordered their arrest and prosecution.

A week later, the complainant, Mian Aftab, said he was the target of a murderous attack and fled Punjab for safety. The 40 officials went to the Supreme Court against the LHC order which on July 20, 2000 ruled that government officials cannot be prosecuted on the complaint of a private citizen.

According to the complainant feudals and influential people had gotten registered over 80,000 fake cooperative societies in the name of poor peasants and obtained bank loans amounting to Rs4 billion. But they defaulted on payment of the loan and over 500 peasants have been imprisoned since 2001.

The matter had been brought to the notice of successive governments but neither any relief was given to the innocent peasant nor any of the real culprit was taken to task.

Mr Aftab in his complaint alleged the officials of cooperative societies, provincial cooperatives department and cooperative banks of misappropriation of the amount.

According to Cooperative Act 1925, minimum of 10 persons or more possessing 12.5 acres of agriculture land can get form a cooperative society and register it with the cooperatives department.

These societies after getting registered can apply for loan from the cooperative banks by mortgaging standing crops. The amount so obtained is refundable within a period of six months.

According to the procedure laid down for the grant of loan, the statement mentioned in the application is physically verified by carrying out survey of the ground and its authentication from the record of Patwari, as to whether the applicant possesses any land or otherwise by the inspector of cooperative society/field manager cooperatives.

The complainant said the registration authorities, officials of cooperative societies and banks prepared fake lists by getting the signatures of the peasants with the help of feudals, landlords and Waderas and got about 80,000 fake societies registered.

The individuals who held positions in concerned departments drew more than Rs4 billion against the name of these so-called 80,000 societies and misappropriated the public money.

But the authorities declared the innocent farmers as defaulters, who never took loan, rather were forced to put their signatures/thumb impression at even gun point by the Waderas and bureaucracy.

The poor farmers are even put behind the bars for not refunding the loan amount. It is further astonishing that about 90 to 95 per cent of the so-called members of the agricultural societies do not even possess any agriculture land.

Mr Aftab urged the federal and the Punjab governments to take stock of the plight of the poor peasants and bring to book the real culprits of the cooperative societies scam.