BAHAWALPUR, April 15: The local Railway police on Thursday claimed to have rounded up four suspects of the Tezrao dacoity. Multan Railway SP Khalid Farooque Mirza told Dawn by telephone that the suspects were being interrogated and some breakthrough was expected soon.
He was confident that the alleged accused belonged to Bahawalpur as they had alighted from the Karachi-bound Tezrao at Bahawalpur railway station after dacoity. He said the alleged bandits had committed dacoity in a moving train between Khanewal and Bahawalpur.
The SP said that two police teams were investigating the incident. One of them, he said, had been dispatched to Lahore to scrutinize the railway reservation record at the railway headquarters while the other was investigating at Lodhran and Bahawalpur.
He did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of some officials of railway reservation office as the alleged accused were issued sleeper class tickets without their NICs.
He further said that the fourth accused had purchased his ticket at the Lahore platform before the departure of the train for Karachi. He appealed the general public to extend their cooperation to track down the accused, whose sketches had already been released to newspapers.
MEASURES: The Food department has taken effective measures to eliminate the chances of corruption in the on-going wheat procurement campaign in the three districts of Bahawalpur division.
Talking to newsmen here on Thursday, deputy director (Food) Abdul Qayyum Lashari said three teams, comprising officials of Food department and enforcement division, had been set up to conduct surprise raids on procurement centres. He said the raiding teams would be authorized to check and scrutiny the wheat stocks and its weight besides hearing growers complaints.
In addition, he said that monitoring committees for each of the procurement centres had also been established. He said these committees would comprise an MNA, an MPA, a local UC Nazim, a lamberdar, two area growers and one food department official.
He said each of the seven-member monitoring committee would be free to check any malpractice and irregularity at procurement centres round-the-clock. The deputy director said that during the last two weeks, over 8,500 tons of wheat had so far been procured in three districts.