GUJRAT, Oct 18: The probe into the affairs of Gujrat B-Division police station has been completed, Dawn learnt here. The inquiry officer told this scribe that the police had indeed implicated innocent people in false cases of illicit arms possession.

Four B-Division policemen were arrested by Akora Khattak police in possession of a huge quantity of illicit weapons on Sept 21, which would have been used to frame innocent people in Gujrat.

According to inside sources, the inquiry officer held SSP Nisar Ahmad Siroya, DSP Qazi Khalid Lateef and B-Division SHO Chaudhry Iqbal responsible for the incident.

The sources said SP Liaqat had sent a comprehensive inquiry report to the IGP. The inquiry officer was said to have observed in his report that the B-Division police registered as many as 251 cases of illicit arms possession to ‘show efficiency in the arms recovery drive’, more than 25 per cent of which were fabricated.

The Akora police had arrested nine persons including four policemen of B-Division police station and recovered 166 pistols, eight Klashnikovs, three 12-bore rifles, 1,800 cartridges and one kilogram of charas from their Hiace (LXK-9640). The accused were identified as Sub-Inspector Mohammad Khan, ASI Afzal, constables Ihsanullah and Shahbaz and Rana Naeem, Riaz Ahmad, Asad Mohammad, Iqbal and Akram.

Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool had taken a serious note of the incident and made Gujrat SSP Nisar Siroya an OSD on Sept 23, besides suspending the services of DSP city Qazi Khalid Lateef, B-Division SHO Chaudhry Iqbal, and the four policemen arrested in Nowshera.

A departmental inquiry was ordered into the matter and the inquiry officer, SP (investigation) Malik Liaqat, told to focus on two main aspects of the matter: Who had sent those policemen to purchase illicit weapons? What might have been the use of those arms in Gujrat?

The four officials of B-Division police station, who were caught by Akora Khattak police, disclosed that SHO Chaudhry Iqbal had sent them to Dara Adamkhel to purchase weapons which would have been used to show arms recovery, sources said. To give legal cover to their visit to frontier areas, the B-Division police had written in their register that its four-member raiding party was going to Nowshera to arrest an absconder in a dacoity-cum-murder case. SHO Iqbal denied the charges and told the inquiring officer that he was innocent.

The inquiry officer also observed in his report that SSP Siroya and DSP Lateef had been issuing wrong instructions to their subordinates, which put the police department in an awkward position. “Even a police constable could estimate that it was impossible for the B-Division police to lodge 251 FIRs in such a short span of time. How was it possible for the SSP and DSP to be unable to determine that B-Division police had registered cases beyond its capacity,” the inquiry officer was said to have written in his report.

When contacted, the inquiry officer confirmed that he had found SSP, DSP and SHO guilty. He disclosed that the four arrested policemen had hired the services of a broker in Nowshera to purchase illicit arms, who had informed the Akora Khattak police that the policemen were carrying a huge quantity of illicit arms to Gujrat.

Asked if he had found any politically-motivated case among the fabricated cases, he answered in the negative, but confirmed that the B-Division police had indeed framed innocent people. “A high-level inquiry team will soon visit every police station of the Gujrat district to ascertain if there are others who have behaved like the B-Division police,” he added.