–Ashfaq Akhtar gave away NoCs for bulletproofing of private vehicles
An official of the Ministry of Interior has been detained by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Friday over issuing 66 fake no-objection certificates (NoCs) for bulletproofing of private vehicles to a Karachi-based company Pak Armouring Pvt Ltd.
FIA has registered a case against Ashfaq Akhtar—a former steno-typist of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) —after his pre-arrest bail was rejected as he didn’t appear before the court. FIA has been granted a five-day physical remand of Akhtar.
Sources in FIA said that there were already three FIRs—35/14, 36/14, 25/14—registered against the same official of MoI, in which he remained in Adiala jail for three months.
Prima facie, a case of preparing forged documents and its utilisation for the purpose of cheating was made out by Akhtar, and the case was registered under sections 420, 468, 471, and 109 of Pakistan Penal Code.
FIA is investigating the role of beneficiaries or owners of private vehicles and other officers of MoI who have been involved in this crime. FIA conducted the inquiry on the complaint of Section officer Mirza Khalid Mehmood as he provided the record of 176 NoCs through Pak Armouring Pvt Ltd, which retrofitted the vehicles and made them bulletproof for civilians.
It is noted that the ministry of interior section officer Shahadat Ali had been arrested in February 2015 and sent to Adiala jail for the same offence. The case is under trial with the Special Judge Central Islamabad (CJCI) Malik Nazeer and further investigation is underway.
It is relevant to mention here that no law in the country exists regarding bulletproofing of vehicles, and converting any vehicle into a bulletproof one is not a declared crime either.
Though, under an SRO issued by the federal government, the MoI has been given powers to issue NOC for the conversion of a vehicle into a bulletproof one, or to import bulletproof vehicle and to issue a license to any company to convert the vehicle into a bulletproof one. Under this SRO, no person can use a bulletproof vehicle without NOC of the interior ministry.
Sources said that the companies involved in this business used to ask owners that they would manage the NOC for their vehicles, as it was their usual business, and the owners had no knowledge of the whole fraud.
However, the MoI has informed the concerned taxation departments that such vehicles should not be transferred further in any name till their regularisation from it.
In a Senate Standing Committee of September 2014, Senator Talha Mahmood viewed that Customs authorities were not giving clearance to some imported bulletproof vehicles due to this scam. There are a total seven retrofitting companies operating in the country having the license of the ministry.
The chair then questioned how owners of the vehicles could be declared innocent and they should also be brought under investigation. Then the MoI told the committee that it had written to all provincial home departments to confiscate those bulletproof vehicles that were being used without NOCs, and an action should also be taken against those companies who were operating without NOC. However, this decision is yet to be implemented across the board.
Investigation in the case had been started when a Karachi-based citizen had approached the MoI for verification of his NOC, which turned out to be fake and then ministry referred the case to the FIA in 2014.
