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ISLAMABAD: Range Rovers are dream cars but in this land of the pure they can bring nightmares.
Chairman of the prime minister's task force Faisal Sakhi Butt has just lost his Range Rover to Islamabad police. Funnily, the police themselves had “gifted” the car to him.
Superintendent of Police Capt (retired) Mohammad Ilyas confirmed to Dawn on Thursday that police recovered the SUV from Mr Butt's house and shifted it to Kohsar Police Station on Tuesday on the orders of IGP Bani Amin Khan.
It was the station that had confiscated the Range Rover in 2008 and given it to Mr Butt on superdari (temporary custody arrangement) in July 2011. The recovery was ordered after Mr Butt allegedly made excuses to return the car on Monday - the day this newspaper published scandals about the superdari system.
Police hierarchy deducted two years from the length of service of SHO Kohsar Police Station Fayaz Tanoli, and transferred his moharrar (clerk) Shabbir Tanoli, as punishment for handing the Range Rover to Mr Butt on superdari when rules require that a confiscated vehicle would be restored only to its owner.
But the hierarchy's superdari troubles are not over with that.
They are now looking for a Range Rover that has been missing since 2002.
Police sources said it was a bigger riddle as the car was one of the two Range Rovers that Mr Wang Bo, owner of China Club in the city, had imported that year from the US. Though meant to be used in his home country, China, the two cars were unloaded in transit at Karachi port and brought to Islamabad illegally.
Police however got information about the secret diversion and raided the China Club which has the reputation of being popular with the high and mighty of the city, including bureaucrats.
It found only one car there however and confiscated it while the second car was never located.
Now surprisingly even the one whose recovery was duly mentioned in the Kohsar Police Station's record has vanished without a trace - and the IGP wants it to be traced out at all cost.
In contrast, the Range Rover recovered from Mr Butt appears a straight case.
It was involved in a brawl between two parties and confiscated by the Kohsar police in October 2008. When its owner did not turn up to reclaim it for long, a forensic was ordered in 2009 which showed its engine and chassis numbers had been tampered with. That added another criminal charge against the disinterested owner who was proclaimed an absconder.
In February 2011, an executive magistrate handed the car to his father.
But that superdari lasted just a few months. Mr Butt got the superdari next and must be regretting it.
