GUJRAT: A suspected hardened criminal was killed allegedly in firing by his own accomplices during a joint operation of the police and Elite Force in the forest area of Rakh Pabbi Sarkar between Kharian and Sara-i-Alamgir on Tuesday.

District Police Officer (DPO) Umar Salamat told Dawn that a joint team of Elite Force and three police stations of the district had launched a grand operation a couple of days ago in the forest to clear the area of outlaws.

During the operation, he claimed, some miscreants had opened fire on police from the bushes. The team escaped unhurt and as soon as the firing stopped, they started advancing towards the area.

They found a body, which was later identified as that of Nasir Afzaal, a resident of Kharian’s Mohri Sharif village wanted by various police stations of the district in at least 18 cases of murder, attempt to murder, robbery, extortion and abduction etc.

The DPO claimed that the deceased was killed by the firing of his own accomplices who managed to escape, while police also found a Kalashnikov and several rounds besides Afzaal’s body.

Police claimed that the deceased had been involved in extorting money from expatriate Pakistanis and businessmen from Kharian and Sara-i-Alamgir.

They registered a case against Afzaal’s absconding accomplices and started an investigation.

Earlier on Monday, another alleged criminal had been killed in a police ‘encounter’ in the Mohtra police precincts of Sialkot district.

JUDICIAL REMAND: A former naib tehsil nazim of Jhelum was sent to the district jail on judicial remand on Tuesday a day after the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) arrested him in a case of misappropriation of the Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) funds.

The ACE had booked former Naib Tehsil Nazim Khawaja Asif Javed, former Tehsil Nazim Ghulam Ahmed Zamurd, the tehsil municipal officer and 11 others on the charges of causing loss of millions of rupees in collection of rent of the TMA’s property and shops in the main bazaar of Jhelum city in 2007.

The case was registered in December 2017. The director ACE Rawalpindi approved the action against the nominated suspects in the case.

The ACE arrested Khawaja Asif Javed and shifted him to the Jhelum Civil Lines Police Station. He was shifted to the district jail on Tuesday.

Mr Zamurd has got the bail before arrest in the case.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2020