November 11, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 12, 1429

KARACHI, Nov 10: A civil judge and judicial magistrate (south) on Monday remanded two employees of the Pakistan Post and nine officials and staff members of Nadra in FIA custody till Nov 12 in a case pertaining to the issuance of fake national identity cards, passports and driving licences.

Mohammad Saleem Memon, a postman at the Lyari post office, and Ghulam Hussain, a peon at the same office, were arrested by the Federal Investigation Agency in a raid conducted at the Awami Markaz on November 4. The FIA team recovered 1,890 blank computerized national identity cards and forged documents from their possession. The investigators got their remand from a court till Nov 10.

Meanwhile, on the information provided by the two suspects, FIA teams raided Nadra offices in Awami Markaz, Lyari, Defence and Keamari and arrested nine officials on Saturday. The suspects included data entry operators Arshad Hafiz, Ashraf Gujjar, Asif Raza, Sarfraz Solangi, Shahid Ahmed and Johnson Saleem, supervisor Raffat Iqbal, peon Pareen Shah and security guard Shahzad Ahmed.

All the suspects were produced in court on Monday to obtain their physical remand. The court extended the physical custody of Saleem Memon and Ghulam Hussain for two more days and remanded the nine other suspects in FIA custody till Nov 12.

Investigators said Saleem Memon and Ghulam Hussain disclosed that they had been running the business for the last eight years in collaboration with some officials of Nadra. The suspects admitted that they had been issuing fake CNICs to foreigners, particularly Bengali and Afghan nationals, against an amount ranging from Rs4,000 to Rs10,000.

According to the prosecution, the suspects were also involved in making false passports and driving licences.

Two FIRs (61/2008 and 17/2008) were lodged against the suspects under Sections 409, 420, 468, 471/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1947 at the FIA Crime Circle, Karachi.

Suicide blast case

An anti-terrorism court adjourned the hearing of a case pertaining to the suicide attack on Allama Hassan Turabi, a leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, and his nephew till Nov 20.

The judge directed co-accused Raheemullah alias Ali Hasan, an activist of banned Harkatul Mujahideen, to engage a counsel. The activist was arrested after a shootout with the police in Saeedabad area on September 26, 2008.

Earlier, the court had declared Reheemullah, Mufti Illyas, Khalid Khan, Sohail Siddiqui and Ali Hasan as absconders in the case.

On March 19, the court had indicted the arrested accused, Sultan Mahmood alias Saifullah, Mohammad Amin alias Khalid Shaheen, Mohammad Akbar Khan, Mohammad Rehman alias Mani and Ashfaq Qureshi on the charges of masterminding the suicide attack on the MMA leader. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.

The prosecution said that the Sindh chief of the Tehrik-i-Islami and provincial vice-president of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Allama Hasan Turabi, and his nephew, Ali Turabi, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the religious leader’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal residence on July 14, 2006. They were coming back to home after attending an anti-Israel demonstration organized by the MMA. Three police guards Azhar Hussain, Fakhar Hussain, Mohammad Rashid and a woman Noreen were also injured in the blast. The alleged suicide bomber was later identified as Abdul Karim.

Two more cases against Tessori

A civil judge and judicial magistrate, south, remanded Mohammad Kamran Tessori, a gold trader, in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in two more cases registered under Section 13-E of the Arms Ordinance and Section 6/9-C of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997, at the Preedy police station. The court on the request of suspect’s counsel, directed the police to provide him medical treatments.