LARKANA, Aug 15: The crime branch on Thursday claimed to have busted a gang involved in preparing, printing and issuing fake appointment orders.

Crime branch SSP Ghulam Serwar Bhayo told a press conference that 59 suspects were booked and five of them were arrested.

He said that the police, acting upon a tip-off, picked a high schoolteacher serving in the Government High School, Sujawal, and seized from him original and fake service books, rubber stamps of various principals and head masters, degrees and certificates, marks sheets, fake appointment orders and offer letters, transfer orders, pay orders, release orders, vehicles transfer orders and documents of GP fund accounts opening, etc.

The car (registration number AQV 203) he was driving was also taken into custody, he added. The SSP said he led the team comprising inspectors Parvaiz Mithani, Zulfikar Khuhawar which investigated the case.

During the investigation, he claimed, Abdul Karim Taggar, a head clerk at the Government High School, Qambar, Riaz Hussain Sangi, the owner of a car showroom, and Sa’adullah Bhutto and Mehboob Bhutto, the owners of a printing press, were found to be the key members of the forgery gang.

SSP Bhayo told journalists that the suspects had links with the officers of the treasury office, Qambar.

The preliminary probe suggested that three sub-auditors of the treasury office, Abdul Jabbar Wagan, Mohammed Khan Shaikh and Zulkarnain Shah, were instrumental in getting the fake IDs of the officials by whose name they were issuing orders for appointment in the education department.

Inspector Mithani said that officials believed to be operating in collusion with the suspects included Bair Sharif DDO (deputy district officer) Sikandar Ali Shaikh, Warah SSO Ashraf Zaman Kumbhar, Garhi Yasin DDO Gul Mohammed Keerio and Matli DDO Sadaruddin Jagirani. Besides, he added former executive district officer (EDO) at Qambar-Shahdadkot Deedar Ali Jalbani, the Government High School, Qambar, headmaster and head clerk were also associated with the gang.

“Mehboob Bhutto, one of the owners of the printing press who is absconding, had been printing fake degrees and marks sheets of the University of Sindh and the Sindh Agriculture University and faking signatures of various officials including the DIG Establishment, Abdul Majeed Dasti,” he claimed.

Through a fake order, the suspects had leased out a plot owned by the Pakistan Railway in Naudero to an influential figure of the Naudero, he said.

Three FIRS were registered at the Market, Civil Lines and Mahota police stations against 59 suspects.

Inspector Mithani said that the car bearing the registration number AQV 302 belonged to Mohammed Ramzan, son of Samandar, against whom more than 50 cases were registered at the Jackson police station in Karachi.

Meanwhile, a judicial magistrate remanded the five arrested suspects in police custody till Aug 20, according to sources in the crime branch.