DERA GHAZI KHAN:Police registered cases on Sunday against six shopkeepers for fraudulently deducting a portion of the amount doled out the poor women under the Benazir Income Support Programme-cum-Ehsas scheme.

District Police Officer Akhtar Farooq told Dawn that the action was taken against the shopkeepers on the complaints filed by the affected women during visits of joint monitoring teams of police and the district administration to various points for distribution of Bisp-Ehsas programme grant.

About the modus operandi of the fraudsters, the DPO said these shopkeepers would deduct a considerable amount from the financial aid during transaction, cheating the poor women.

He said the women would previously draw the two instalments of aid amount after as many months that would total up to Rs21,000 each, adding that some staffers at the distribution points would even deprive them of the entire aid.

As per the complainants, the shopkeepers would draw the full amount but give only Rs12,000 to each recipient and keep the remaining sum.

Acting on the complaints, Civil Lines and Gadai police booked the suspects under section 420 of the Pakistan Penal Code, the DPO said.

KASUR: The district police on Sunday booked two alleged fraudsters, one each at Khudian and Pattoki Ehsas Kafalat grant disbursement centres for cheating poor women recipients.

According to the complainant, Benazir Income Support Programme (Bisp) Assistant Director Asghar Cheema, one of the suspects, Saaram, collected ATM cards from some poor women fraudulently at the Pattoki’s Allama Iqbal Road disbursement centre to deprive them of the grant. However, he was arrested on the affected women’s complaint.

The police registered a case against him.

Similarly, the police arrested a government employee, Ghulam Mustfa, on the complaint of a recipient, Suraiyya Bibi, who alleged that the suspect got her biometric identification fraudulently and then lied to her that there was no aid amount in her Bisp account. The incident occurred at Khudian Government Girls High School centre.

Earlier, on Friday, police had arrested a suspect, Tasleem Mahmood, at the Government Girls High School, Kot Radha Kishan Center and lodged a case against him for allegedly paying only Rs9,000 to a grant beneficiary, Fatima Bibi, instead of the entire amount of Rs12,000.

The police registered a case against him.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2020