KARACHI, Dec 14: A sessions court on Wednesday sentenced five men to as many years in prison in a land scam case.

The court found Saeed Quershi, Haleem Sheikh, Faisal, Mohammad Ali and Khurram guilty of occupying a plot through forged documents in 2004.

Additional district and sessions judge (south) Shahid Hussain Chandio also imposed a fine of Rs20,000 each, and in case of default the accused men would have to undergo an additional one-month imprisonment.

According to the prosecution, Saeed Quershi with the help of the co-accused instituted a fake file of plot 17-B, situated in Gulshan-i-Faisal Cooperative Housing Society within the remit of the Boat Basin police station and on the basis of the documents got it allotted to his name.

A case (FIR 286/04) was registered under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471(using as genuine a forged document) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of Farhat Iqbal Farooqi, the owner of the plot.

The accused were present in court and after the pronouncement of the order they were taken into custody and sent to prison with the conviction warrants to serve out the sentences.

Suspect remanded A judicial magistrate on Wednesday remanded a suspect in police custody in a case pertaining to wrongful confinement of children at a seminary till Dec 17.

The police produced Qari Mohammad Usman before a magistrate to seek his physical remand saying efforts were under way to arrest the four absconding accused with the help of the arrested suspect.

The court handed the suspect over to police on three-day physical remand and directed the investigation officer to produce him on the next hearing.

According to the prosecution, the police raided a seminary situated in Afghan Basti within the remit of the Gulshan-i-Maymar police station on the night of Dec 12 and found over 50 children and 14 men shackled.

A case (FIR 273/11) was registered under Sections 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 344 (wrongful confinement for 10 or more days), 506-B (punishment for criminal intimidation), 337-1 (Shajjah) and 34 (common intention) of the PPC against the five suspects.