KARACHI, Nov 16: The Station House Officer of Preedy police station on Saturday was suspended after senior officials took cognizance of the raid conducted by ASP Garden on a shopping centre in Saddar late on Thursday during which 134 people were held on suspicion of gambling.

Most of the people arrested had claimed, after the raid, that they were innocent. They were busy in shopping when the police raid took place, and not in gambling.

Meanwhile, some police sources claimed on saturday that the SHO of Preedy police station, Shaukat Mehmood, had been made the scapegoat as he was suspended for “dereliction of duty” even though he hadn’t taken part in the controversial raid.

The police’s raiding party had initially booked 134 people under section 485-F of an ordinance which had lapsed. Now, according to sources, the police has altered the section under which the people were held. The section mentioned now is 5/5 of CrPC, which deals with gambling.

The sources pointed out that the section now applied was in the purview of the SHO and the case couldn’t be transferred to the investigation wing of the police department. This, they said, was strange.

The sources also claimed that the police wanted to save ASP Ali Mohsin, SHO Garden and SHO Nabi Bux, who had conducted the raid without intimating the area police.

The people belonging to the said shopping centre claimed that the police had snatched more than Rs1.3 million from the shopkeepers but had shown a recovery of only Rs300,000.