SUKKUR, Sept 18: Two senior police officials, former superintendents of police of the Shikarpur district, K.K Memon and Mehtab Shaikh, have been accused of misappropriating about Rs3 million from ransom money which was paid to them by relatives of two kidnapped judges on January 2, 2005 for their release.

Police sources told Dawn that judges Abdul Wahab Abbasi and Farooque Channa were urging police authorities that their money should be returned and action be taken against the police officials.

The alleged misappropriation came to light when the two judges identified the kidnappers in an identification parade.

Those identified as the kidnappers are: Hyder Bux Shar, Ghulam Hussain Shar, Abdul Hameed Qureshi and Mirza Kharos Jatoi. The outlaws told the judges that they had received only Rs500,000 as ransom money for the release.

The judges said their relatives had paid an amount of Rs3.5 million to police officials who were dealing with the matter.

In this connection a high-level meeting was held in Sukkur on Saturday which discussed ways of getting the money returned to the judges.

The RPO Sukkur and high-ranking police officials attended the meeting.

In the meeting judges told the RPO that police officials misappropriated the amount of Rs3.5 millions which they had borrowed from various people.

They said former SP investigation Mehtab Shaikh in their statement of section 161 had not mentioned about the ransom money of Rs3.5 millions.

The RPO recorded statements of the judges under section 162 in which they told that they had been released after payment of Rs3.5 millions as ransom.

The RPO directed Shikarpur DPO Fareed Jan Sarhandi and SP investigation Ghulam Hussain Bhutto to take all-out efforts for returning the ransom money to the judges.

PARTY CHANGE: Mr Jamil Sehto, president of the PPP Sukkur on Saturday resigned from basic membership of the party and announced to join PML-Q.

The announcement was made at a press conference at his house this evening.

Candidate for district nazim of Sukkur, Nasir Hussain Shah, and Sardar Ali Gohar Mahar, and former Zile Nazim Ghotki were also present at the press conference.

Mr Sehto said he remained with the PPP for 27 years but the PPP leadership disregarding his services and made Islamuddin Shaikh as member of the PPP CEC and his son Nauman Shaikh is nominated for election of Taluka Nazim Seat.