LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party-Workers (PPP-W) leader Moazzim Ali Abbasi, whose party is a component of the Larkana Awami Ittehad, has alleged that the Sindh home minister and his brother were politically victimising their opponents by instituting false criminal cases against them.

Addressing a press conference at Kot Darab in Waleed area on Monday, he said that lately, using their henchman Nizam Kalhoro, they had registered a bogus case of extortion with Baqapur police station and later on managed to initiate probe against him [Moazzim Abbasi] under fake charges by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE).

He said he was ready to face cases, demanding constitution of a joint investigation team (JIT) to initiate a thorough probe against him, Suhail Anwar Siyal and his brother Tariq Siyal so that truth could be unearthed.

The JIT should have members from police, Rangers, ISI and other investigating agencies for a transparent and trusted inquiry into the allegations. The truth would prevail, he said, adding that a series of bogus cases were registered against his supporter Shahnawaz Kalhoro and even at one instance, police were asked to book Shahnawaz’s mother in a false case, but with the intervention of a politically influential person, they changed their mind.

Citing examples of a number of cases, he alleged that both the Siyal brothers were involved in illegal mutation of land record and receiving payments through fake documentation. “I am ready to provide proofs for it,” he said.

He said that after the Sindh chief secretary had given approval for initiating the inquiry against him [Moazzim] by the ACE and registering extortion cases, he got bail from the Anti-Terrorism Court.

He alleged that Asad Kharal was their [Siyals’] frontman. He accused Larkana police of partial attitude and asked Sindh Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja to check what the Larkana police commander was doing there.

“I dare to ask Larkana SSP Sajid Amir Sadozai that under what rules, he has provided eight policemen to Nizam Kalhoro, who has registered the case against me with Baqapur police station,” he said. He said he had through his lawyer challenged the chief secretary’s permission to initiate the probe against him [Moazzim] by the ACE.

He said that with such cases and trends, the PPP was sowing a seed of hatred against it. Already the PPP under the leadership of Asif Ali Zardari had demonstrated poorest performance in the last elections in Punjab, Balochistan, KP, Gilgit-Baltistan. And now in Sindh, it [PPP] would face tough contests in the forthcoming elections, he added.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2017