KASUR: Phoolnagar police on Thursday arrested a man allegedly involved in large-scale power theft and recovered dozens of electricity meters and gadgets used to slow down or reverse the meters.

Police also recovered cash worth Rs2.5 million from a laboratory the suspect had set up on the first floor of his house and a fake card showing him a police official.

The FIR has been lodged under various sections of Electricity Act including 462-1A, J, M and K and 420, 468, 471 and 411 of Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of Sarfraznagar SDO Muhammad Fahad Khan.

According to FIR, a Lesco team headed by SDO Fahad Khan, M&T officials and local police on Wednesday night caught Abdul Ghafar of Kamogil village using direct power. The team on the first floor of his house found a laboratory being used to reverse, tamper and slow down meters of Lesco consumers.

The FIR said the team found dozens of industrial, commercial and domestic meters, devices including remote controls, wires and other gadgets. Police also recovered Rs2.5m cash from the lab and took into custody cheque book of the suspect.

It said the suspect had caused loss worth millions of rupees to Lesco by reversing and tampering with meters.

SDO Fahad Khan told Dawn on phone that the suspect had confessed to the illegal activity he had been committing for the last one year. The SDO said line losses of the subdivision were over 20 per cent.

It merits mentioning that Phoolnagar is an industrial zone. The FIR only indicate the consumer numbers rather than the names of consumers.

A police official requesting anonymity said the suspect owned two houses in Lahore’s Bahria Town.

Further investigation is under way.

KILLS WIFE: A man shot dead his pregnant wife on Thursday at village Maulapur in Chunian. He also injured himself pretending it a robbery.

Police arrested suspect Muhammad Waseem.

According to complainant Muhammad Jaffer, uncle of deceased Iram Bibi, he along with two other villagers went to the house of his niece where Waseem said he was going out with Iram on a motorcycle for errands.

When the couple did not return for a long time, he started looking for them. Outside the village, Waseem shot at and killed his wife and later shot at his leg to show it a robbery.

Waseem was being treated at the Pattoki Tehisl Headquarters Hospital while the police shifted the body of Iram to the morgue for autopsy.

ROBBERY: Gunmen broken into a house at village Kanganpur in broad daylight on Thursday and took away gold, cash and other valuables worth Rs6.5 million and tortured the inmates when they tried to raise an alarm.

The police said four gunmen stormed into the house of trader Muhammad Iqbal and held the family hostage at gunpoint. They tortured trader’s wife and two minor children when they tried to raise the alarm. They searched the house for valuables and took away 85 tolas of gold ornaments, Rs1.5 million and other valuables.

According to neighbours, they called the police at 15 about the presence of robbers in the house but they arrived at the scene after half an hour when the robbers had left the crime scene.

District Police Officer Asif Shahzad also visited the family and made a special team for the arrest of the culprits.

The police said they arrested two suspects. DIES: Ten-year-old Muhammad Ahmed fell from a tractor-trolley and died under its wheels on Wednesday in the procession of Eid Miladul Nabi near Mandi Usmanwala Bazaar.

The police are looking into the matter.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2018