BAHAWALNAGAR: A Special Branch (SB) officer has been removed from his post and a departmental inquiry has been initiated into the charges against him for keeping a grain trader hostage at a private place and forcing him to pay Rs65 million to him with connivance of Bahawalnagar Saddar Police, Dawn has learnt.

A report sent by the office of the SB to the regional office on Thursday, a copy available with Dawn, stated that Noman Joiya, a resident of Marley Chowk, had a business in the grain market under the name of Sufyan Traders along with his partner, Mazhar Machi of Bahawalnagar.

He suffered a severe financial loss and was saddled with debt due to the current poor rice season.

One of Noman’s lenders was Amir Naveed, a trader from Bahawalnagar. Debt-ridden Noman was on the verge of fleeing the country when his partner, Mazhar, informed Amir of his intentions.

Officer kept trader hostage, forced him to pay Rs65m in connivance with police

On Oct 21, Noman was taken into illegal custody by police near Marley Chowk without any complaint filed against him and he was shifted to a petrol station owned by Amir’s brother where he was kept in illegal detention.

The report says Saddar Police Station SHO Kashif Iqbal and Muhammad Faraz, a sub-inspector and circle in-charge of SB Bahawalnagar, were involved in illegal detention and they received large sums of money in connection with this incident.

During the illegal detention of Noman, he was forced to reach a settlement to pay his abductors Rs65m in form of cash and rice. The police and SB officials threatened him with dire consequences to force him to agree to the settlement.

Intelligence sources told Dawn that the SB and police officers made the deal to receive 40pc of the recovered money as ‘commission’. They received around Rs15m in the form of cheques and cash while rice worth Rs50m, belonging to various small traders, stocked by him at the Shamim Rice Mill, was also confiscated by police and handed over to Amir.

On receiving the news of ‘confiscation’ of their stocked rice, when the affected traders contacted Amir, he returned the rice worth Rs10m to Rs12m to some traders on the condition of keeping silent over the matter and deducted 25pc from the total amount for police.

The sources claimed that the deducted amount was sent to the police as per their ‘deal’. The process of receiving a 25pc cut from the affectees was still going on when this report was filed.

After the incident, Sub-Inspector Muhammad Faraz was removed from his post and transferred to the regional office of the Special Branch but no action was taken against the police officer.

On the other hand, the trader is still waiting for justice.

SB SP Muhammad Abid confirmed the incident, saying that strict legal action would be taken against those responsible in the light of the departmental inquiry.

Bahawalnagar District Police Officer Nassebullah Khan said an investigation was being conducted regarding the involvement of the police officials in the said matter.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2024