DADU: The 17 cartons containing a cellular phone firm’s scratch cards worth around Rs45 million allegedly stolen from the company’s Port Qasim (Karachi) warehouse were recovered in a raid carried out by police on Tuesday in Ghulam Panhwar village of Dadu district.

The company in the FIR of the alleged theft had put the value of the missing material at Rs80m. The FIR was lodged at the Sukkan police station in Karachi a couple of weeks back.

On Tuesday, the district police of Dadu said that 17 cartons were recovered from a place in Ghulam Panhwar village, some 35km from here, within the jurisdiction of the Makhdoom Bilawal police station. They said a raid was conducted at the specified place on a tip-off.

The recovery was announced by Dadu SSP Aijaz Ali Shaikh at a press conference in his office. He said that the team that traced out the stolen cards was led by SHO Nadeem Solangi of the Makhdoom Bilawal police station.

They said the recovered cards appeared to be valued at Rs45m.

The SSP said that three suspects were found to have been involved in the theft. One of them, Asad Chandio, was arrested and a hunt was on for the other two, Mohammad Swaleh and Nadeem Panhwar, he added.

He quoted Asad as telling the police that they [the three suspects] intended to shift the stock to some other place but police arrived to foil the plan.

An FIR against the three suspects has been registered, the SSP said.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2021