SIALKOT, May 2: Waking up from a sweet dream that transformed into nightmare, a majority of the clients of Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah, euphemistically called Double Shah, have started impressing upon the government and the National Accountability Bureau to take steps to prevent such instances in future.

Interestingly, the people who until a few days ago had been seeking release of Double Shah had now done away with the soft corner for him lately realising that it was a blunder they committed by depositing their hard-earned money.

They have demanded that the government should make legislation to avoid recurrence of cooperative society and other financial scams in the country which owe a great deal to avarice of people, mostly illiterate, who dream of having their money or resources multiplied in the wink of an eye. They are equating the Double Shah episode to the scams of past.

Almost three weeks after Mr Shah’s arrest, neither the federal government nor the NAB has come up with any plan to compensate the clients which include people from all walks of life. According to reports, poor villagers, daily wagers, fixed-income class and the well-to-do had deposited their money with Mr Shah for getting it doubled.

The victims now believe that Double Shah, who had been running a parallel banking system in Gujrat, Gujranwala and Sialkot, was doing the business illegally. They want the government take effective measures to check the practice and launch an awareness campaign among the people.

Talking to Dawn, some of the victims even described it as the second biggest financial scam in the country which had lured thousands of locals and hundreds of overseas Pakistanis into getting their deposits doubled within weeks. At least 200 agents and sub-agents are running the network across Pakistan.

Even known exporters and industrialists started flowing cash to the Double Shah network in the hope of getting double the sum within promised time. Now they see Syed Sibtul Hassan Shah as “a man with a sharp mind who had shown them golden dreams.”

“He is very influential for having long association with some politicians from Gujrat, Wazirabad, Sambrial and Gujranwala,” the victims said.

Among his clients were a number of senior government officials who managed to get their deposits doubled before the arrest of Double Shah. There are those who believe that Double Shah would return very soon and pay them back according to his commitment.

Some of the affected clients criticised the government for its delayed action against Double Shah and his agents who had been working for the last two years.

Bashiran Bibi, a widow who hails from Kollokey village, told this correspondent that she deposited Rs500,000 — “the earning of my life” — with Double Shah after selling her piece of land and cattle to get the amount doubled. She said she intended to get her three daughters married with the money, but the man’s arrest had diminished her hopes.

Muhammad Aslam, a transporter of Mandi Bahauddin, claimed that he sold his two vehicles and deposited more than Rs1 million with Double Shah, but instead of having it doubled he was hardly expecting to get half of the amount back. Now he is in financial straits.

Sakeena Bibi deposited hundreds of thousands of rupees with the network after selling her house, but now she and her family were moving from pillar to post to get the dough as well as shelter.

Haji Muhammad Amjad, who is settled in Saudi Arabia, deposited Rs1.1 million after selling his plot in Daska city. He also ‘forced’ his brothers to follow the suit and now they were all deprived of money.

A large number of industrial workers and labourers also decided to try their luck and gave away whatever they had on them, but did not think of its repercussions. Most of them got advance salaries from their workplaces or borrowed the amounts from their relatives and are under debt now.

Sheikh Muhammad Asghar Shahid of Daska city has urged the government to release Double Shah so that he can return the money to the people, especially to widows and orphans. “The poor should be returned money as a first step and then the well-off clients compensated under the supervision of the NAB,” he suggested.

Six clients had died of heart attack in Gujranwala after the arrest of Double Shah. On the other hand, those people who had had their amounts doubled well in time were thankful to God and now pledge to avoid taking any such risk in future.

The PML-N has set up a free legal-aid cell in Daska city for providing guidance to the affected people and help them get their money back. It has decided to take up the issue with the Lahore High Court. PML-N SVP (International Affairs) Dr Khalid Luqman is heading the cell.

He said the party had taken the initiative in the interest of the people and was collecting data about all the clients.

Long queues in front of the camp speak volumes for the anxiety and agony the people are in, but will the episode leave some lesson?