GUJRAT: Four hundred fugitives wanted by Gujrat police in various heinous crimes have fled abroad as the district tops the entire Punjab in terms of out-of-country fugitives who can only be extradited through Interpol.

The Gujrat police recently launched a fresh campaign to bring these suspects back. It is based on reaching the close kin to the suspects and uploading a recorded message of Gujrat DPO Syed Ali Mohsin, asking the suspects to come back and surrender before the police.

Talking to Dawn, the DPO said he had planned to convey the message to the fugitives through different channels, including social and mainstream media, to urge them surrender, assuring them of justice if they were proven innocent in investigation.

Police start drive for their extradition

Mr Mohsin said out of the 400 fugitives, around 100 to 150 might have been nominated by the complainants without involvement in the cases because in most of murder cases, the complainants would nominate close kin to the main suspect under various sections, particularly Section 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deals with abetment in crime. At the end, except the main suspect, rest of the people would often get exonerated of the charge either during the investigation or court proceedings.

However, he has made an offer to the fugitives to come back with his personal assurance of the investigation on merit as process of their extradition from the countries they were residing in had already been initiated and they would be arrested.

The DPO admitted that the number of such fugitives in Gujrat was the highest in the province.

According to the officials, the police had record of some 335 outlaws settled abroad, out of which red warrants of some 123 had been issued. Three such fugitives have surrendered before the police during the last one week, one each from Italy, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates. The police had got two outlaws extradited from Dubai in November.

A senior police official, dealing with such cases, told Dawn the procedure of getting the red warrants issued from Interpol had been very complicated. The district police would first initiate the matter and write to the provincial home department that would send the matter to the federal government’s interior ministry from where the matter would be referred to Interpol for issuance of red warrants.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2018