The lingering legal battle involving one of the country’s leading business conglomerates, Jahanagir Siddiqui Group, took an ugly turn on Friday when majority and minority shareholders turned the group’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) into a battlefield that eventuated into the lodging of a counter-FIR against Jahanagir Siddiqui and his son Ali Siddiqui.
Another FIR lodged in the Saddar Police Station was by the JS Group against Shunaid Qureshi, CEO of Al-Abbas Sugar Mills, and his associates including Haji Abdul Ghani, the chairman of demutualisation committee of the Karachi Stocks Exchange and a signatory of the Al-Abbas Sugar Mills’ board.
Witnesses claimed to have seen incidents of hooliganism at Friday’s AGM held here at the RegentPlaza hotel which had one of its meeting hall’s doors broken.
When contacted, the spokesmen of the two disputing sides pointed fingers at each other for hooliganism.
The brawl started when Shunaid, the nephew of Jahangir Siddiqui, and Haji Ghani along with over a dozen affiliates arrived to attend the JSCL AGM in the capacity of minority shareholders. It is important to mention here that the AGM was scheduled to approve the company’s financial accounts including the grant of a bonus of over Rs 430 million to a non-executive director, Ali Siddiqui, for his advisory services in the $37 million PICT sell-off in March 2012.
According to the witnesses, as Qureshi and company reached the meeting spot, they were denied entry into the hall with the organisers allegedly saying it wasn’t the time for the meeting yet. This infuriated the minority shareholders, who then engaged in a verbal clash with the JSCL’s organisers. The clash, the witnesses claimed, intensified to the extent that the door of the hotel’s hall was broken.
“There was a pandemonium. We were badly roughed up. They were not allowing us entry into the meeting hall,” claimed Ghani while talking to Pakistan Today.
“They entered the hall, broke the door and manhandled us,” the counter-allegation came from Imran Shaikh, a spokesman of the JS Group. Imran said entry could, logically, not be allowed to those who were not the company’s shareholders.
According to the witnesses, some of the members from the two groups were seen bleeding and having their clothes torn into pieces.
Peace was only restored when the Saddar police, after receiving an anonymous call, arrived at the scene and surprisingly, arrested around 15 of the minority shareholders, including Qureshi and Ghani.
The JSCL side was later said to have lodged an FIR against the remaining seven of Qureshi’s group as others were subsequently set free.
As soon as he was freed by the Saddar police, Ghani visited the SSP Clifton who said the police’s one-sided action was inappropriate. The sources privy to the matter said the SSP not only ordered his deputy to arrange the release of the seven others but also assured Ghani of a just resolution of the issue.
Ghani confirmed to Pakistan Today that all of his affiliates had been released by the police.
“We have lodged an FIR against them and have nominated therein Jahangir Siddiqui, Ali Siddiqui, Imran Shaikh and their other subordinates,” he said.
Imran, however, denied all the charges leveled against his side asking how could Siddiquis be nominated in the FIR when they were not even present there.
While Ghani resolved to face his rivals in the court, Imran shrugged off and said the Ghani and his friends were free to do anything.
If I am not wrong, its the same JS the mutual fund of which sucked so many middle class Pakistanis savings back in 2006/7 and reduced their holdings by 50% by 2009. All those products were marketed by commercial banks whose officers were entertained @ Malaysia and Thailand on JS expense. These officers tricked uneducated middle class Pakistanis by drying their bank accounts of the substantial saving and moving those funds to JS Fund, the most volatile speculative fund in Pakistan, where their life-long saving got drained through the hole thanks to all those asterisks @ the bottom of the brochure for which those poor Pakistanis were never educated. Please do not buy any product from JS. This whole company is a scam.
You are wrong. Thats why you are alone and on a lonely planet! LOL. Loser
Please make useful comments. All I see is someone trying to stop theft at a publicly listed company aur Olta choor Kotwal to dand raha hai: Aap please Express tribune ka article dekhain:
"…a lawsuit filed by JSCL CEO Suleman Lalani, accusing Osman and others of embezzling over Rs220 million from Al-Abbas Sugar Mills, in which Osman, his family, and his associates own a majority share…..The fraud appears to be remarkably crude…What Osman and Qureshi appear to have started doing was making payments for molasses that never arrived at the factory. At least nine shell companies were used to funnel money from Al-Abbas to Osman and Qureshi, on the pretext of buying molasses. Those shell companies received the money and then, within a few days, transferred the money to either Osman, or Qureshi, or occasionally to their family and other associates."
Express Tribune
"Damage control: Sued by JS for fraud, Ghani Osman levels counter-accusations" April 2 2013
JS is the modern day equivalent of BCCI bank…. Just like BCCI had all the cooked books, double accounting keeping standards and branches all across the world full of "friends-and-family", JS is a similar scam. Please never ever invest in any of their products!! These Karachi-seths will rip your flesh of your bone and then will fly away to US thanks to their American Passports!!
I request NAB that they shd immediately start trial of these "American Passport Holder" Karachi-Seths who have deprived so many Middle Class Pakistanis of their savings!! I bet Siddiaqui family kids will not be able to grab a 7/11 or security-guard jobs back in US but here in Pakistan, a lawless arena, they are like hyenas pouncing over the meagre savings of middle class Pakistanis!!
who ever they are what ever they did people are already invested in js items first let them go up then share such type of comments all above comments are just their rival comments nothing else anyone who does have the shares of js group he will not say what js did he will just say keep your mouth shut until he exit from us group so plz be careful to comment on anything
true .but people are highly panic at this stage.Be careful to comment as thousands of people are already involved in buying js items
Well, they better SELL then!
the JS group is a fraud, people should learn from thr mistakes, and avoid investing in any of thr companies.
Comments are closed.