The fate of Yawar Ali, who has been in jail for the last three years, hangs in the balance after a man conned a fortune out of him in a dud cheques case. Yawar is having problems getting his post-arrest bail because the complainant, who implicated him in the case, is allegedly the judge’s blue-eyed boy. Though evidence has proved that Yawar is innocent, his bail application has been rejected four times.
Yawar’s fault is that he is an illiterate man, who handed over his financial affairs to Mohammad Rafique, who after teaching Yawar how to sign on bank documents issued cheques of millions of rupees in his own name from Yawar’s bank account. When the cheques bounced, Rafique had Yawar arrested under Section 489/F.
HOW IT HAPPENED: Yawar was the owner of Yawar Gift Centre in Shah Alam Market. Rafique told Yawar to open an account in Standard Chartered Bank and also taught him how he should sign bank documents. He also provided a specimen of signatures to Yawar for practice. Rafique prepared a fake authority letter on Yawar’s behalf requesting the bank’s branch manager that Rafique was Yawar’s employee and was authorised to receiving his chequebook.
On Yawar’s chequebook, Rafique signed ten different cheques worth Rs 13.3 million in his own name while the account did not have the sufficient amount to entertain those cheques, thus they were dishonoured, and Rafique had Yawar arrested. Yawar filed a post-arrest bail application through Rana Nadeem. During the hearing, the bank submitted a report that the chequebook’s authority letter and the signatures on the cheques which Rafique presented were fakes.
Despite the bank’s report, the court dismissed Yawar’s application without granting him post arrest bail. He filed several applications in this regard but none was entertained. Yawar’s spouse and children posted an advertisement in a newspaper appealing to the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of Yawar’s matter, but to no avail.
CONMAN BAILED, VICTIM IN JAIL: After the submission of the bank report, Yawar registered a case against Rafique, who filed an application in the trial court seeking pre-arrest bail. With the connivance of the police, he withdrew the same and has net been arrested so far, while Yawar Ali is still waiting for his post-arrest bail.
ANOTHER CONNED: During this period, Rafique played the same game with his wife too. He forced his wife, Samina, to bring Rs 1 million from her mother. After Samina’s refusal, Rafique asked Samina to open an account in Standard Chartered Bank and just like in Yawar’s case taught her the kind of signatures she needed to do on documents.
After the account was opened, Rafique forged two cheques of Rs 0.6 million and Rs 0.4 million in his own name on behalf of his wife, and after the dishonouring of these cheques, he launched an FIR against his wife too. On an application filed by Samina, LHC set-aside the case registered against the applicant.
