Important person’s daughter-in-law was tortured: governor

It was a shame that the daughter-in-law of an “important personality of the province” was deprived of justice after she was tortured, Punjab Governor Latif Khosa said on Thursday. He was talking to journalists. The governor said that courts had confessional statements by those people who were raising objections to appointment of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman. “Why not they get their cases reopened”, he said while referring to the references against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders. Khosa said that loot and plunder of resources was going on in Punjab and corruption worth billions was done in the Aashiyana Housing Scheme, Yellow Cab Scheme, Danish Schools and the Sasti Roti Scheme. The governor said that extortion, ransom, abductions and robberies and daylight murders had made the people of Punjab unsafe and insecure and the Punjab government was neglecting the basic rights of the people by not providing them security of life and property.
Separately, addressing a conference on abolishing torture in criminal justice system held under auspices of the Democratic Commission for Human Development, Khosa said that the federal government had taken several important steps towards improving the judicial system and in this regard, addition of three new fundamental rights in the constitution by the 18th Amendment was an example. He said that new fundamental rights include the right to education, right to information and right to fair trial. The governor said that torture in society had many forms and manifestations. Citing the case of Ayesha Ahad Malik, he criticised the Punjab government for torturing Ayesha and said that a false case of ransom was registered against her and the complaint of Ayesha was not being entertained.
In another development, Khosa set-a side the proceedings of the Punjab anti-corruption establishment (ACE) against Bahria Town and directed the ACE to refrain from harassing the petitioner and sought all relevant record until the first week of November.
According to details, in 2008-09, Muhammad Ashfaq and Malik Tanveer entered into an agreement with Bahria Town General Manager Colonel (r) Akhtar Saeed for sale of land situated in Malik Azizal and Dhochha at rate of Rs 45,000 per kanal.
Ashfaq and others sold 1,401 kanals land on fake mutation documents and collected Rs 80.5 million from Bahria Town. When the Bahria Town administration came to know about the fraud they lodged a FIR against Ashfaq and staff of the revenue department at the Rawat Police Station under sections 420/468/471 of the CrPC. After eight months of registration of the said case, the ACE lodged two separate FIRs against Ashfaq, Patwari Rizwan and Naib Tehsildar Adnan Kayani.
After investigation, the ACE placed Bahria Town as witness in the said cases. Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali pressurised the ACE to nominate Bahria Town in the said cases on which Saeed submitted an application before the Lahore ACE director who appointed deputy director Ibrahim Junaid to investigate the matter. After completion of the investigation, Ibrahim submitted his report that Ashfaq and others had committed a fraud worth Rs 80.5 million with Bahria Town and its administration was not concerned with the cases registered against Ashfaq and others.
Lahore ACE director Kazim Ali Malik accepted the said report and directed officers to act upon it. After sometime, Abid Javaid, who was appointed the new ACE director, ordered to re-investigate the matter and on October, 4, prepared a report giving permission to initiate judicial action against Bahria Town. After the orders were issued, counsels of Bahria Town Malik Waheed Anjum and Qaisar Qadeer filed an application before the governor against directions of the Lahore ACE director.