FAISALABAD, Sept 2: The investigation team deputed to probe the Sonia Naz rape case and motor registration scandal of the Faisalabad excise and taxation department claimed on Friday to have gleaned vital information about the original issue.
Sources close to the investigation team, headed by DIG Zafar Ahmad Qureshi, revealed that local investigation police teams of Inspector Jamshed Iqbal Chishti, Inspector Asadur Rehman, a close relative of accused SP Abdullah Khalid, Inspector Haq Nawaz, sub-inspector Fayyaz Ihsan and Inspector Khuda Yar, a former staff officer of the now suspended SP, raided the excise offices in June last year.
The inquiry team learnt that they arrested Excise and Taxation Officer Farman Masood, inspector Javed Iqbal and clerks — Umer Saleem, Abdul Wahid, Muhammad Arif, Rana Shahid, Asim Yousaf, Nasrullah, Muhammad Tariq, Altaf Husain, Muhammad Nadeem, Muhammad Asif Bhatti, Saeed Anwar and Muhammad Yousaf Gujjar.
The police registered a case under section 109, 400, 401, 409, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of PPC on an application of Muhammad Nadeem, who complained that the excise officials were running a gang with the help of vehicle-lifters and registering the hijacked vehicles on genuine documents deposited for the registration of their new vehicles.
The entire mafia was being run under the patronage of ETO Farman, he added.
The inquiry team observed that the police investigation team released masterminds of the scam after getting bribes and jailed only four of the arrested accused — Javed Iqbal, Saleem Alvi, Abdul Wahid and Muhammad Arif — after entering their formal arrest. The remaining suspects, however, were declared ‘innocent’ and set free. Asim Yousaf, the husband of Sonia Naz, was among those freed to arrange more money for the police.
It also came to light during the inquiry proceedings that the police extorted over Rs20 million from the excise officers and hundreds of people for absolving them of the charges of forgery, patronizing the vehicle-lifters, fraud and tampering with the official record.
None of the police officials who recorded statements before DIG Zafar Ahmad during the last couple of days could reply to the query if Asim had not been rounded up so far and no misdeed committed was against Sonia, why had the latter brought the policemen to the dock.
The report presented by the Motor Registration Authority ETO before the inquiry team revealed that junior clerk Asim Yousaf was working at the office on June 4, 2004 when a police team arrested two officials — Javed Iqbal Babar and Umer Saleem Alvi — for tampering with the record and registering lifted vehicles on forged documents.
A case was registered against 14 people and the police sent four of them behind bars and declared six others innocent. Four suspects, including Asim, are still at large according to the police record.
About the mysterious disappearance of Asim, the official noted that he was in police custody and the police could tell it better.
The record provided by SP Abdullah and other investigation police officers about the motor registration scandal clearly revealed that the police did not arrest any vehicle-lifter or any other individual for keeping vehicles with bogus documents.
Sources said it showed that the police team had arrested hundreds of people as accomplices of the arrested excise officials, but later freed them after getting illegal gratification.
During the preliminary inquiry it was revealed that only 59 vehicles were formally registered while others released along with the owners, who were thoroughly questioned and harassed for weeks together and set free through the power of purse. And of the 59 vehicles which were formally entered into the record of impounded vehicles, some 50 were released on the pretext of supardaris issued by various courts.
The police sources insisted that most of the vehicles were released on fake papers and the original owners were not handed over these.
The entire record of the impounded vehicles is said to be in possession of sub-inspector Fayyaz Ihsan Khan, a blue-eyed official of the main accused, who is still at large.