KARACHI: Two days after the recovery of a ‘kidnapped’ person from an office of the director general of excise by police, the excise department broke its silence on Monday and alleged that the local police misused their powers, illegally took away a ‘habitual criminal’ from their custody and damaged the department’s reputation.

In a statement issued by the DG-Excise, he vowed to take legal action against the police team that raided the office located on I.I. Chundrigar Road on Oct 2.

It said that in the morning of Oct 2, the SHO of the Pirabad police station, Waseem Ahmed, and other personnel without contacting senior officers raided the police station of the district West excise police station, located behind the office of the DG of the excise & taxation and narcotics control department.

“They misused their uniform and duty and overstepped their authority, climbed over the walls, took the watchman hostage at gunpoint and beat him,” the statement said.

It said that suspect Ali Hussain, who is a ‘habitual drug dealer with previous criminal record’ was booked in an FIR (11/2021) after he was arrested for possessing over eight kilograms of narcotics.

“An illegal FIR was lodged against Excise Constable Jan Muhammad and two other persons who were assigned on cleanliness work,” it said, adding: “Senior officers of the excise police are in touch with senior officers of the Sindh Police so that legal action can be taken against this illegal act of SHO Wasim Ahmed.”

Earlier, Pirabad SHO Wasim had carried out a raid at the DG-Excise office, recovered Ali Husain and arrested one excise constable and two private persons. He said Husain was ‘kidnapped’ from his home in New Mianwali Colony of Orangi Town and the family lodged an FIR on charges of kidnapping and dacoity.

According to the FIR (875/2021) lodged by Kashif Afridi, son of Ali Husain, around 15 men and one woman travelling in ‘two police-like mobiles’ arrived at their home at around 5am on Oct 1.

Three of them wore ‘police-like uniforms’. They broke the door of their home, took two tola gold ornaments from a box, snatched Rs150,000 and a mobile phone from his brother, Mohammed Shoaib, and took away his father Ali Husain along with his cell phone.

The complainant said the same day at around 8pm, he received a call from the phone of his father and the caller demanded Rs2 million as ransom for the release of his father.

At that time, the SHO also said neither senior excise officers were aware that the kidnapped person was kept in their office nor the excise department had informed the police about the raid and arrest of Husain from their area of jurisdiction.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2021