VEHARI, Feb 25: Burewala city police on Saturday registered two cases on the complaint of Deputy District Officer (Revenue) Azfar Zia; one involving an alleged incident of firing on the DDO’s residence and the other for manhandling of the government official in his office.

The firing case was registered against unknown assailants, while the second against 14 people, including two union council nazims Hamayun Shakeel Cheema and Mushtaq Awan, for barging into DDO’s office and manhandling and threatening him of dire consequences.

However, the police have yet not arrested any accused, one of whom is a brother of Punjab chief minister’s political advisor Chaudhry Sikandar Elahi Cheema.

When contacted, the DDO, Azfar Zia, alleged that in the first week of February, District Nazim Syed Shahid Mehdi and his brother Syed Sajid Shah disgraced and abused him for forwarding a Lambardari case of chak No 303/EB to the district officer (R) against their wishes.

He further alleged that the district nazim had also pressured him to change the decision in a case (Sardar Mohd Ayub Dogar vs Munshi Khan Dogar), decided on Dec 9, 2005.

The DDO added that the matters worsened on Feb 2, 2006, When the nazim called him up in his office and without giving a chance to explain his position abused and harassed him without any justification.

He said the reason for nazims’ anger might be that the DDO (R) office had failed to contribute Rs5,000 demanded by nazim’s office for holding some annual event, or district nazim’s ‘unlawful’ commands were not complied with.

The DDO said he had brought the matter to the notice of revenue department high-ups.

The district nazim, on the other hand claimed that the allegations levelled by the DDO were baseless. He said the officer was neither pressured by him nor by his brother and they had never sought any favours from the DDO.

However, the nazim admitted that he had ‘vent his frustration’ over DDO’s alleged frequent absence form his office which caused trouble for the people who had to repeatedly visit the revenue office in connection with their complaints and other important work. He alleged that the DDO was irregular and often reached his office late, and added that disgracing and harassing government officials was not his style.

District nazim’s brother Sajid Shah also denied involvement in the matter.

Meanwhile, the strike and protest of district’s revenue officials over alleged manhandling of the DDO entered third day.

They demanded action against the accused and vowed to continue their strike till their arrest.