ISLAMABAD: A brawl between two women that took place in April last year, was covered up by the federal bureaucracy. However, the facts of the case have surfaced now.

Police and capital administration sources said that just days before his suspension SSP Asmatullah Junejo had ordered an inquiry into a complaint from Ghazal Gillani, wife of a local magistrate, that the police have been maliciously delaying legal action on the FIR she registered on April 30, 2014 accusing the wife of a higher ranking officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) of beating her on a grouse dating back to July 2013.

Ms Gillani claimed that after an additional session judge intervened at her request in September 2014, investigation officer Mohammad Ashfaq submitted only an incomplete challan, mentioning her but not the main accused.

She also informed SSP Junejo that while her pre-arrest bail in the case was confirmed on September 8, 2014, Additional District and Sessions Judge Rakhshanda Shaheen cancelled the pre-arrest bail of the accused on November 7, 2014.

Ms Gillani sought SSP Junejo’s intervention in the last week of December “so that at least now necessary direction would be issued for the forthwith submission of main challan by the concerned official to the competent court and strict disciplinary action would be taken against the delinquent official”.

ASP Irum Abbasi ordered to inquire into her complaint was not available to comment on Ms Gillani’s allegation that information officer Ashfaq was “in connivance with the accused party” and the rumours that officers of the Pakistan Police Service and the Civil Superior Services are colluding to keep low ranking “challengers in their place”.

It is said that in a bid to suppress her case involving a member of “high bureaucracy”, an old chargesheet of misdemeanour against the magistrate husband of Ms Gillani has been revived and sent to the interior ministry.

Neither were Chief Commissioner Zulfikar Haider and Deputy Commissioner Mujahid Sherdil available for comments nor they replied to the text messages sent to seek their version.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2015

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