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Today's Paper | September 21, 2024

Published 08 Jan, 2009 12:00am

CJ orders probe into reported fraud

ISLAMABAD, Jan 7: Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar has directed the Rawalpindi police to investigate a newspaper report that an investment company has vanished after defrauding citizens of millions of rupees.

Justice Dogar, taking suo motu notice of the report in an Urdu daily, ordered the Regional Police Officer of Rawalpindi Nasir Khan Durrani to look into the allegation and appear before the court along with City Police Officer Rao Mohammad Iqbal on January 14 with a comprehensive report.

The newspaper report alleged that the Rawalpindi-based Small Investment Development Corporation deprived widows, retired persons and common citizens of millions of rupees by selling them non-existent residential plots in posh Islamabad sectors that are yet to appear on the map.

It lured people with the slogan of ‘Apni Cheat, Apni Jannat’ (enjoy paradise under your own roof). Many citizens fell for the alleged swindlers' invitation to possess a dream house by parting with just Rs17,000 for a residential plot in sectors F-17 and F-18 of Islamabad, which do not exist at all.

Representatives of the housing scheme reportedly issued fake demand notes and allotment letters for the property they sold to the gullible in their offices at Saadi Road Rawalpindi Cantonment and Bank Road Saddar.

However when the buyers started raising questions after their unmet demands to have a look at their property, the owners of the housing scheme locked the offices and vanished.

Now the chief justice has directed the Rawalpindi police to come up with the real state of affairs and submit a report to his court on January 14.

Meanwhile in another suo motu action, the chief justice has directed Regional Police Officer Hyderabad to depute an officer not below the rank of District Police Officer to appear in the Supreme Court on January 13 along with a report on kidnapping of four sisters and their father.

A complaint by Ms Sadaf Fatima Panhwar had attracted the suo motu. She alleged that her parents got her father-in-law and four sisters-in-law kidnapped after she refused to submit to their demand to divorce her husband Abdul Rahim Turk.

Ms Sadaf Fatima Panhwar complained that her family members had kidnapped her sisters-in-law and father-in-law.

Ms Panhwar had reportedly contracted marriage with Abdul Rahim in a civil court at her free will stating that her parents wanted to marry her against her will.

On her refusal to get a divorce, Ms Sadaf Fatima Panhwar’s parents along with other persons allegedly kidnapped her father-in-law Abdul Gani Turk, sisters-in-law Sahrish, Sadaf, Sahar and Mehrin.

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