SIALKOT: Several people on Sunday continued their protest in Daska for the second consecutive day against a local travel agency’s owner who they claimed had escaped with 3,000 passports and over Rs270 million in exchange for lucrative packages of Umrah and Haj.

The affectees shouted slogans and urged the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to ensure early arrest of the accused Muhammad Ikram Mughal. They said Mughal was running Nimra Travels Daska for several years and offering economical packages for Umrah and Haj.

Several locals in Daska claimed they found the travel agency locked when they went there to collect their air tickets on the dates given to them for flying to Saudi Arabia.

They informed police that they had found out Mughal fled with 3,000 passports and Rs270 million he had extorted from them on the pretext of sending them to Saudi Arabia for Umrah.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Sialkot District Secretary General Mohsin Ikram Bhatti and other JI and Shabab-i-Milli officials also expressed concern over the ‘fraud’ and urged the FIA to take stern legal action against the accused.

INJURED: A woman received bullet injuries on Sunday during a dacoity in Peero village Chak Motra, Daska tehsil.

Zeeshan Shamsi, a journalist, and his wife Saima were on their way when some armed dacoits intercepted them near Peero village.

They looted valuables, jewellery, cash worth thousands of rupees and shot injured Saima over resistance, and fled from the scene.

Rescue 1122 officials shifted Saima to the Combined Military Hospital from the local Civil Hospital in a critical condition where she was unconscious until the filing of this report.

Motra police registered a case.

Published in Dawn, December 22th, 2014