KHANEWAL, July 22: Kohna police allegedly released on Tuesday five officials of Hanjarwal police station (Lahore) and four others without bail in a case registered against them under sections 365, 452, 148/149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, Dawn has learnt.

Hanjarwal police officials arrived with four people here at Basti Kahlilabad on Monday to arrest Muhammad Yaseen in a case registered with Hanjarwal police in 2006. Khanewal Kohna police, however, arrested them after it turned out the facts mentioned in the case were false.

Muhammad Rafiq, of Hanjarwal, got married his daughter with Yaseen, of Basti Khalilabad, Khanewal, about a month ago. The marriage ended soon after due to some differences among the families. Later, both parties fought over return of dowry and other matters.

Rafiq approached Hanjarwal police to have Yaseen arrested in any case. Police officials reportedly got a huge bribe from the complainant and registered a first information report (FIR) in 2006 in which an accused named Yaseen was wanted to police.

On Monday, five Hanjarwal police officials with complainants Rafiq, Muhammad Sadiq, Majeed and Mahmood arrived in a 14-seater van at Basti Khalilabad, bundled Yaseen into the van and started traveling back to Hanjarwal.

During this, the raiders left out one of their colleagues at Basti Khalilabad, who was later held by the relatives of Yaseen. People called Kohna police officials and motorway police and informed them about Yaseen’s kidnapping.

Motorway police caught Hanjarwal police van near Katchakhu overhead bridge. Kohna police also arrived at Basti and took into custody the left-out raiders. Motorway police handed over the van full of police officials and complainants to Kohna police.

Kohna police noticed the father’s name of the accused Yaseen named in the Hanjarwal FIR was different from Yaseen’s father, of Khanewal.

Police on the complaint of Yaseen’s father registered the FIR against the five officials of Hanjarwal police and four ‘complainants’.

On Tuesday, police, however, released the police officials without bail while other accused were still in police custody.

“Yes, I confirm an FIR was registered against police officials and some private people on the complaint of Yaseen’s father,” said Noor Elahi, in charge of investigation at Kohna police. He said he did not know why Hanjarwal officials had been released.

Hanjarwal station house officer Nazir Ahmad Opal, however, accused Khanewal police of registering a “baseless” case against the Hanjarwal police under alleged pressure of the Khanewal district nazim. He said police officials had reached Khanewal to arrest the proclaimed offender named Yaseen in FIR 741/2006.

“We have informed senior officials about the highhandedness of Khanewal police and a legal action will be initiated against them,” he said.

Saddar DSP Malik Ijaz said Yaseen was going to marry again on July 30 and his former in-laws wanted to trap him before wedding. He rejected the allegations leveled by Hanjarwal police and called their action illegal.