MULTAN: A litigant party was attacked and beaten by NAB police station officials and other NAB officials on the accountability court premises on Wednesday.

Multan Accountability Court Judge Safdar Iqbal has reported the incident to the Lahore High Court registrar for further necessary action. According to a complaint lodged with the accountability court registrar by lawyer Mughees Iqbal Utra, the lawyer with his father and other family members, who are a party in a case, were beaten and humiliated by three police officials of NAB police station of Multan when they came out of the courtroom after hearing proceedings.

He alleged sub-inspector Ali Akbar with constables Arshad and Khawar, and 20 to 22 unidentified people in police uniform at the behest of NAB Additional Director Qasim, Investigation Officer Mohsin Haroon and DG NAB Ateequr Rehman, beat his family members and lawyer Waqas Latif.

He said they were on bail and on every hearing appeared before court.

During the fight, the police officials beat them and stole their cash and wristwatches.

As per sources, the NAB officials wanted to arrest Mr Utra and his family members in another case. This is not the first time the NAB officials have breached court sanctity. Earlier, the director general (DG), directorate of district judiciary (DDJ) of the LHC recommended the NAB chairman to take necessary action against a NAB deputy director, Multan, over his misbehavior/misconduct with the staff of accountability court.

In his letter to the NAB chairman on Oct 15, AD Khalid stated that the accountability court judge of Multan sent a letter regarding the misbehavior and misconduct of NAB Multan DD Wajihul Hassan through a letter on Aug 27. He recommended that the action should be taken against the officer and the LHC should be informed about it immediately.

On Aug 27, Multan Accountability Court Judge Safdar Iqbal wrote a letter to the NAB chairman and the LHC, stating that he had received a complaint from Mr Nasrullah, a court staffer (Ahlmad), through the court registrar on Aug 17, according to which Mr Hassan misbehaved with the complainant.

Previously, on Aug 15, the same officer (Mr Hassan) asked the Ahlmad to provide him the copies of files pertaining to the cases of PHATA (Punjab Housing and Town Planning Agency), state vs Abdul Jabbar Shah etc and state vs Rana Muhammad Afzal etc. However, the Ahlmad asked him to apply for the purpose through a proper channel on the prescribed form, over which he (Mr Hassan) allegedly misbehaved with the officials and used derogatory language against them.

Mr Hassan also is flouting the orders of the competent authority regarding leaving the charge of his office despite passage of more than two months as he was transferred to the bureau’s Sukkur office on Aug 4.

The NAB Multan, however, is of the view that Mr Hassan submitted a representation to the human resource DG and will be relieved of his charge if his representation was rejected by the competent authority.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2020